Natalio Barco Rivera v. Kevin Raycraft et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan conditionally grants Natalio Barco Rivera’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 years earlier and was apprehended while already residing there. The court further concludes that continued detention without an individualized bond hearing violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause and declines to require administrative exhaustion.

Holdings

1. Prudential exhaustion was not required, and alternatively any exhaustion requirement should be waived because the statutory and constitutional issues were fit for judicial resolution, delay would cause hardship, and administrative review would likely be futile.
2. Section 1226(a), not § 1225(b)(2)(A), governs detention of a noncitizen who has resided in the United States and was already within the country when apprehended and arrested.
3. Because Rivera's detention was governed by § 1226(a), the absence of an individualized bond hearing violated the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause.
4. The court dismissed the Superintendent of North Lake Correctional Facility but retained the Acting Director of ICE and the United States Secretary of Homeland Security because retaining them would help ensure enforcement of the conditional habeas relief if Rivera were transferred.

Questions Presented

1. Whether prudential exhaustion should be required before the court could consider Rivera's § 2241 challenge to his immigration detention.
2. Whether 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) or 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) governs detention of a noncitizen who entered the United States years earlier, has resided there, and was apprehended within the country.
3. Whether detention without an individualized custody hearing violated the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause.
4. Which respondents were proper parties to the habeas proceeding.

Disposition

writ_granted