Ramirez Clavijo v. Kaiser

Background

Paula Sofia Ramirez Clavijo filed a petition challenging her immigration detention and moved for emergency injunctive relief. The court first issued a temporary restraining order requiring her release and barring the Government from re-detaining her without notice and a hearing before a neutral decisionmaker. She was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on July 25, 2025.

Ramirez Clavijo is an asylum seeker and citizen of Colombia. She entered the United States without inspection, admission, or parole in December 2023. The Department of Homeland Security issued her a notice to appear in immigration court and released her on her own recognizance while she pursued removal proceedings. She later applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. The opinion states that she has no criminal record and suffers from serious anxiety and depression.

On July 24, 2025, Ramirez Clavijo appeared for a scheduled immigration-court hearing. The immigration judge told her that the Government had moved to dismiss her case so it could begin expedited-removal proceedings. The judge did not immediately decide that motion. After the hearing, immigration officers arrested Ramirez Clavijo outside the courtroom under a warrant issued under 8 U.S.C. § 1226. She was released under the temporary restraining order. The immigration judge later granted the Government’s dismissal motion without prejudice, and Ramirez Clavijo appealed that ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

The parties’ arguments

Ramirez Clavijo argued that detention would violate substantive due process because she was not a danger to the community or a flight risk. She also argued that procedural due process required an opportunity to contest her arrest and detention before a neutral decisionmaker.

The Government argued that Ramirez Clavijo was subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225 because she had not been admitted or paroled and was subject to expedited removal. It argued that the three-factor procedural due-process test from Mathews v. Eldridge did not apply and that the Attorney General had discretion to determine where she would be detained.

Court’s analysis

The court held that the record showed the Government had affirmatively placed Ramirez Clavijo in full removal proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a and had released her under the discretionary detention framework in 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), rather than under § 1225(b). The court found that these actions gave her a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. It rejected the Government’s attempt to rely on § 1225(b) as a new basis for detention, stating that the Government had raised that argument after the fact and had cited no supporting authority.

The court applied the three-factor test from Mathews v. Eldridge to determine what procedures were constitutionally required. First, Ramirez Clavijo had a substantial private interest in remaining out of immigration custody. Second, there was a risk that she could be wrongly detained without a pre-detention hearing because she had not received a bond or custody hearing. The court also stated that the Government would need to prove by clear and convincing evidence that she was a flight risk or danger to the community before depriving her of that liberty. The Government had presented no evidence of either risk. Third, the court found that the Government’s interest in detaining her without a hearing was low because she had no criminal record, had attended her required immigration-court hearing, and had lived and worked in California since her release. The court concluded that all three factors favored Ramirez Clavijo and that she was likely to succeed on her claim that she was entitled to a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker before any re-arrest or detention.

The court did not decide Ramirez Clavijo’s substantive due-process claim at this stage because the injunction would prevent the immediate deprivation that claim challenged.

The court also addressed transfer. It found that the statute cited by the Government did not specifically give the Attorney General discretion over Ramirez Clavijo’s individual place of detention. Exercising its authority to protect its proceedings, the court found that keeping her in the district would help resolve the case, provide access to medical and legal services, and address concerns about detention conditions.

Other preliminary-injunction factors

The court found that Ramirez Clavijo had shown likely immediate and irreparable harm. It relied on the harms associated with immigration detention and found that detention was likely to worsen her serious medical conditions, including anxiety and depression. The court also noted that she is a survivor of sexual assault and that immigration officials had indicated her wig, which she uses to manage anxiety related to alopecia, would be taken away in detention.

The court found that the balance of equities and the public interest favored an injunction. It concluded that the potential harm to Ramirez Clavijo’s health and liberty was significant, while the Government faced only a short delay in detention if it later showed detention was warranted. The court issued the injunction without requiring security because it found no realistic prejudice to the Respondents.

Order

The court granted the preliminary injunction. The Respondents are enjoined and restrained from re-detaining Ramirez Clavijo without notice and a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker. At that hearing, the Government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that changed circumstances make her a danger to the community or a flight risk and that no conditions short of detention would prevent those harms.

The Respondents are also enjoined from transferring Ramirez Clavijo out of the district or deporting her while these habeas proceedings are pending. The preliminary injunction remains in force throughout the action unless the court modifies it earlier.