Salcedo Aceros v. Kaiser

Background

Paula Andrea Salcedo Aceros filed a petition challenging her immigration detention and sought a temporary restraining order, an emergency order intended to prevent immediate harm until the court could hold a further hearing. The respondents were Acting Field Office Director Polly Kaiser, Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd M. Lyons, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and United States Attorney General Pamela Bondi.

According to the record cited by the court, Salcedo Aceros is an asylum seeker who fled Colombia. Federal agents initially detained and released her after determining that she was not a flight risk or danger to the community. She attended her immigration-court hearing on August 15, 2025. At that hearing, the government moved to dismiss its removal case, but the immigration judge did not grant the motion and instead gave her time to respond and scheduled an asylum merits hearing for February 29, 2028. Minutes after she left the courtroom, Department of Homeland Security agents arrested her. She was being held at 630 Sansome Street in San Francisco, California.

Salcedo Aceros argued that her arrest and detention violated the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. She asserted both that the respondents lacked a valid reason to detain her and that she was not given a bond hearing before being detained.

Court’s analysis

The court applied the standard used for a preliminary injunction. The applicant had to show a likely success on the merits, likely irreparable harm without immediate relief, a balance of hardships favoring relief, and that relief would serve the public interest. Because the government was the opposing party, the court treated the hardship and public-interest factors together.

The court found that Salcedo Aceros was likely to succeed on her procedural due process claim. It stated that the Due Process Clause entitled her to a bond hearing before an immigration judge before any arrest or detention. The court also found that the likely unconstitutional loss of liberty was immediate and irreparable.

The court concluded that the balance of hardships and public interest strongly favored relief. It reasoned that the public has a strong interest in protecting procedural safeguards against unlawful detention, while the government would face at most a short delay if it later showed by clear and convincing evidence that detention was needed to prevent danger to the community or flight.

Order

The court granted Salcedo Aceros’s motion for a temporary restraining order to preserve the status quo while the parties briefed the matter and prepared for a hearing. It ordered the respondents to immediately release her from custody. It also enjoined and restrained them from re-detaining her without notice and a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker, and from removing her from the United States.

The order remained effective until Saturday, August 30, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. The respondents had to file a status report confirming her release, respond to the request for further relief, and appear at an August 29, 2025, hearing to show why a preliminary injunction should not issue. The court dispensed with any bond for the temporary restraining order. The order did not separately require Salcedo Aceros to remain in the Northern District of California; the court explained that it retained jurisdiction even if the government moved her after the case was properly filed.