Archilla v. Bondi
- Eric Tostrud
- 0:25-cv-02144
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 17
Counsel of record per CourtListener. Firm names are approximate.
In Archilla v. Bondi, Judge Tostrud ordered ICE to release a detained immigrant because ICE failed to explain the specific reasons for revoking his supervised release, violating its own regulations.
Noncitizens detained by ICE under final orders of removal who are released on Orders of Supervision and whose release is subsequently revoked, particularly those held for extended periods where removal has been impeded by foreign countries' non-cooperation with travel documents. The ruling also affects ICE's procedural obligations when seeking to revoke supervised release under 8 C.F.R. § 241.13.
What happened
In Archilla v. Bondi (No. 25-cv-2144), Sarail A., a noncitizen detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Freeborn County Detention Center in Minnesota, sought release through a federal court petition challenging his re-detention. Sarail had previously been released from ICE custody in 2020 after years of failed removal attempts, but ICE revoked that release in May 2025, citing only "changed circumstances" and a "significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future" — without specifying what those circumstances were. Sarail argued that ICE failed to follow its own regulations in revoking his release.
The case turned on the interpretation of federal immigration regulations governing how ICE may revoke a released immigrant's supervision. Those regulations require ICE to notify the immigrant of the "reasons for revocation" and provide a meaningful opportunity to respond. The court found that merely invoking the phrase "changed circumstances" — without identifying what specifically changed — does not satisfy that requirement. The court also found that ICE failed to properly determine, using the regulatory factors it is required to consider, whether Sarail's removal was actually likely in the foreseeable future. The Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation, which reached the same conclusions, was accepted over ICE's objections.
Judge Eric C. Tostrud overruled all of the government's objections, accepted the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation, and granted Sarail A.'s petition, ordering his release subject to the conditions of his prior supervision order. The court also granted the motion for expedited handling and a temporary restraining order preventing further re-detention, but denied Sarail's broader request to require court approval before any future re-detention. Lisa Monaco was removed as a named respondent in the case.
The detailed version
- Archilla v. Bondi · No. 0:25-cv-02144
- Eric Tostrud
- Sept. 3, 2025
Background
Sarail A. is a noncitizen who pleaded guilty in 2010 to federal drug charges — possession with intent to distribute cocaine and conspiracy — and was sentenced to 144 months in prison. Upon his release, ICE served him with a notice of intent to issue a final removal order under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), which makes noncitizens convicted of aggravated felonies deportable. In August 2017, an immigration official issued a final order of removal.
Sarail represented to ICE that he is a Canadian citizen born in Ontario. Ontario's Office of the Registrar General found no record of his birth there. ICE also contacted Jamaica — the country of his claimed mother's origin — requesting a travel document, but received no response. ICE detained Sarail for approximately three years before releasing him in November 2020 on an Order of Supervision, in compliance with a then-operative federal court order requiring review of prolonged detentions.
After his release, ICE claims Sarail failed to complete required biometric check-ins on four occasions (October and November 2023, December 2023, and April 2025). On May 6, 2025, ICE issued a Notice of Revocation of Release, stating that "changed circumstances" showed a "significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future," and re-detained him. The Notice did not specify what circumstances had changed. ICE conducted an informal interview the same day, but the record shows Sarail was not told the specific basis for the revocation. After the habeas petition was filed, ICE received guidance in May 2025 that Jamaica was cooperating with travel document requests and requested a search for Sarail's Jamaican birth certificate, though no record established Sarail's Jamaican citizenship.
Procedural History
Sarail filed a pro se (without a lawyer) petition for a writ of habeas corpus — a court order requiring the government to justify a person's imprisonment — under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 on May 19, 2025. He raised three claims: (1) ICE detained him without due process; (2) his detention violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the federal law governing agency conduct; and (3) he was entitled to a court order preventing re-detention without judicial approval. He also sought attorneys' fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA).
Magistrate Judge John F. Docherty issued a Report and Recommendation (R&R) recommending that the habeas petition be granted and Sarail be released, that the injunctive relief requests be denied, and that Lisa Monaco be terminated as a respondent. The government objected to the recommendation to grant the petition. On August 29, 2025, attorney Nicholas Ratkowski appeared on Sarail's behalf and filed motions for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and expedited relief seeking immediate release.
Legal Framework
The governing regulation is 8 C.F.R. § 241.13, which applies to noncitizens subject to a final removal order who remain detained after the standard 90-day removal period. Under this regulation, ICE may revoke a noncitizen's supervised release on two grounds: (1) violation of supervised release conditions, or (2) changed circumstances showing a "significant likelihood" of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future. 8 C.F.R. § 241.13(i)(1)–(2).
In either case, § 241.13(i)(3) requires ICE to (a) notify the noncitizen of the "reasons for revocation," (b) conduct a prompt informal interview affording the noncitizen an opportunity to respond to those reasons, (c) allow the noncitizen to submit evidence, and (d) evaluate contested facts and determine whether revocation is warranted.
Separately, § 241.13(f) lists factors ICE must consider when determining whether removal is likely in the foreseeable future, including: the noncitizen's compliance history, ICE's history of removing people to the country in question, the ongoing nature of ICE's efforts, and the State Department's views on removal prospects.
The Court's Analysis
Objections 1–3: Adequacy of the Revocation Notice
The government argued that stating "changed circumstances" and a "significant likelihood of removal" was sufficient notice under § 241.13(i)(3), and that the regulation did not require ICE to specify what had changed. The court rejected this.
Relying on the ordinary meaning of "reason" — an explanation or justification that makes an action intelligible — the court held that a bare reference to "changed circumstances" does not constitute the "reasons for revocation" required by the regulation. The court supported this conclusion through: (1) plain text analysis using multiple dictionary definitions; (2) consistent usage of "reason" and "reasons" elsewhere in § 241.13 to mean specific probative facts; (3) the functional requirements of the informal interview, which is designed for the noncitizen to "respond to the reasons stated in the notification" — an impossibility if no specific reasons are provided; and (4) the inapplicability of the expressio unius canon (the rule that mentioning one thing implies exclusion of others), which the court found misapplied here given the regulatory context.
The court also cited persuasive case law from multiple federal district courts — including Nguyen v. Hyde (D. Mass. 2025), Liu v. Carter (D. Kan. 2025), Roble v. Bondi (D. Minn. Aug. 25, 2025), and Bailey v. Lynch (D.N.J. 2016) — all of which treated the "reasons for revocation" as requiring specific factual support. Because the Notice was insufficient, ICE also failed to comply with the subsequent procedural requirements — a meaningful opportunity to respond and evaluation of contested facts.
Objection 4: The § 241.13(f) Factors in the Revocation Context
The government contended that the § 241.13(f) factors — the multi-factor analysis for determining likelihood of removal — do not apply to a § 241.13(i)(2) revocation determination, and that the issue was not even properly before the court because Sarail had not specifically argued that removal was unlikely.
The court overruled this objection. First, reading Sarail's pro se petition liberally as required under Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89 (2007), the court found that Sarail's challenge to the lawfulness of his detention implicitly challenged ICE's determination that his removal was likely. Second, the court held that because § 241.13(f) is the only part of the regulation addressing how a likelihood-of-removal determination should be made, it necessarily informs any such determination under § 241.13(i)(2) as well. The court noted that no circuit — including the Eighth Circuit — had ruled against this reading, and that persuasive authority from the First Circuit (Kong v. United States, 62 F.4th 608 (1st Cir. 2023)) and multiple district courts supported applying the § 241.13(f) factors in the revocation context.
Disposition
The court:
- Overruled all of the government's objections to the Magistrate Judge's R&R.
- Accepted the R&R.
- Granted Sarail A.'s motion for expedited handling.
- Granted Sarail A.'s habeas petition — ordering his release from custody, subject to the conditions of his prior Order of Supervision.
- Granted the Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) as to release, but denied the request for an injunction barring future re-detention without court approval.
- Terminated Lisa Monaco as a respondent.
The court entered judgment accordingly. The requests for attorneys' fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act were not addressed in this ruling.
Read the full 17-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.