Manolo Bernave Lopez Ramos v. Samuel Olson, et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky grants Manolo Bernave Lopez Ramos’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. The court holds that 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), rather than the mandatory-detention provision in § 1225(b)(2)(A), governs the detention of a noncitizen who entered the United States and has resided there for years. The court concludes that Lopez Ramos is entitled to the protections of § 1226(a), including the opportunity to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge.

Holdings

1. Section 1225(b)(2)(A) applies to noncitizens who are arriving or actively seeking admission, while § 1226(a) governs the detention of noncitizens already present in the United States and facing removal. Because Lopez Ramos had resided in the United States for approximately thirteen years and was not shown to be arriving or seeking admission, his detention was governed by § 1226(a), which entitled him to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
2. The entry-fiction doctrine did not apply because Lopez Ramos was not stopped at the border, the record did not establish that he was apprehended shortly after unlawful entry under the circumstances addressed in Thuraissigiam, and he was never paroled into the United States.
3. Lopez Ramos's detention without an individualized bond hearing violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, and he was entitled to an individualized custody determination.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Lopez Ramos's detention was governed by the mandatory-detention provisions of 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) or the bond-hearing framework of 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a).
2. Whether applying the entry-fiction doctrine deprived Lopez Ramos of constitutional due process protections.
3. Whether detention without an individualized bond hearing violated Lopez Ramos's rights under the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause.

Disposition

writ_granted