Pablo Sequen v. Kaiser

Background

Carmen Aracely Pablo Sequen entered the United States from Mexico in June 2023 and, about a week later, turned herself over to Department of Homeland Security officials. After briefly detaining her, the government released her on her own recognizance under an order issued under 8 U.S.C. § 1226. The government also placed her in regular removal proceedings.

For more than two years, Pablo Sequen lived in San Francisco, attended all of her immigration hearings, complied with the government's requirements, obtained work authorization, and worked at a bakery. The opinion states that she has no criminal history and lives with her sister and niece.

On July 31, 2025, after an immigration judge continued her case to allow her to respond to the government's request to dismiss her removal proceedings and pursue expedited removal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested her as she left the courtroom. The arrest was based on a Department of Homeland Security warrant issued under § 1226. The next day, Pablo Sequen filed a petition challenging her detention and requested emergency relief. The court ordered the government to release her and prohibited re-detention without notice and a hearing before a neutral decisionmaker. The court later considered her request to replace that temporary order with a preliminary injunction.

Legal standard

To obtain a preliminary injunction, a plaintiff must show a likely chance of success on the merits, likely irreparable harm without an injunction, favorable balancing of the hardships, and that an injunction serves the public interest. Because the opposing party was the government, the court considered the hardship and public-interest factors together.

Analysis

The court held that Pablo Sequen was likely to succeed on her claim that the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause requires a hearing before the government re-detains her. The court reasoned that her release created a protected liberty interest in remaining out of immigration custody. It also concluded that, even if she had not acquired full constitutional protections when first apprehended, her more than two years in the United States and the ties she developed there gave her the right to due process.

The court determined that § 1226 governed her detention. The government had treated her as subject to § 1226 for more than two years, released her under that statute, and later arrested her using a warrant issued under it. The court concluded that § 1225(b)(1) did not apply because the government had not initially found her inadmissible under the provisions covered by that section and had not shown the later conditions required for its application. The court also concluded that § 1225(b)(2) did not apply to a person arrested on a warrant under § 1226 while residing in the United States.

Under § 1226, Pablo Sequen would ordinarily receive a bond hearing before an immigration judge after an arrest. The court found that waiting until after arrest created a substantial risk of an unjustified loss of liberty, particularly because the government had not shown that she was a flight risk or danger to the community. The court concluded that a hearing before detention would significantly reduce that risk. The court stated that the due-process claim would be even stronger if § 1225 applied, because those provisions did not provide a mechanism to challenge detention while removal proceedings were pending.

The court also found likely irreparable harm because re-detention without constitutionally adequate procedures would deprive Pablo Sequen of physical liberty. It found that the balance of hardships and the public interest favored an injunction, while the government's interest in re-detaining her without a prior hearing was minimal on the record presented.

Order

The court granted Pablo Sequen's request for a preliminary injunction. During the case, the government may not re-detain her without first providing a pre-detention bond hearing before a neutral immigration judge. At that hearing, the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that she is a flight risk or danger to the community and that no conditions short of re-detention would prevent those harms.

The court did not decide at this time Pablo Sequen's separate request to prohibit detention under all circumstances, stating that the relief granted made an immediate decision on that substantive due-process issue unnecessary.