Hector Cid-Barrios v. Kevin Raycraft, Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, Detroit Field Office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Kristi Noem, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Pamela Bondi, U.S. Attorney General, and Executive Office for Immigration Review

Summary

The court holds that the ICE Detroit Field Office director is the proper immediate custodian and respondent for a detained noncitizen’s 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas petition under binding Sixth Circuit precedent. Applying Rumsfeld v. Padilla, the court concludes that the petition must be filed in the district of confinement, which is the Western District of Michigan because the petitioner is detained in Baldwin, Michigan. The court orders the case transferred from the Eastern District of Michigan to the Western District of Michigan.

Holdings

1. Under binding Sixth Circuit precedent, the ICE official responsible for the district in which the noncitizen is detained is the immediate custodian and proper respondent to a § 2241 petition challenging immigration detention; the administrator of the contract detention facility is not the required respondent.
2. A core § 2241 habeas petition challenging present physical confinement must be filed in the single federal district that includes the place of confinement and has territorial jurisdiction over the proper respondent.
3. When a § 2241 petition is filed in a district lacking the proper territorial jurisdiction, the court should transfer the action under 28 U.S.C. § 1631 when another federal court could exercise jurisdiction and transfer is in the interest of justice.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the proper respondent in a § 2241 habeas petition by an immigration detainee is the ICE regional or district director rather than the warden or administrator of the detention facility.
2. Whether a core habeas petition challenging present physical confinement must be filed in the federal district containing the place of confinement.
3. Whether transfer under 28 U.S.C. § 1631, rather than dismissal, was the appropriate remedy for filing the petition in the wrong district.

Disposition

transferred