Larios v. Albarran

Background

Jorge Rivera Larios filed a petition challenging his immigration detention on October 14, 2025, and moved for a temporary restraining order two days later. The respondents identified in the opinion were Sergio Albarran, the San Francisco Field Office Director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Kristi Noem, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Pamela Bondi, the United States Attorney General.

The opinion states that Rivera Larios is a native of Mexico and that immigration records show several entries into the United States, removals, and later reentries. In January 2022, he was released under an order of supervision that included a condition barring criminal conduct. He later pursued protection based on a claimed fear of torture and applied for a U visa. His related proceedings were administratively closed while the visa application was pending.

In August 2025, local officers arrested Rivera Larios for a domestic-violence offense and released him the next day. The opinion states that no charges had been filed. On October 14, 2025, he attended an immigration check-in. The field office director determined that the arrest violated the conditions of supervision and detained him. He remained detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in San Francisco when he filed the motion.

Temporary restraining order standard

A temporary restraining order is short-term emergency relief. The court applied the same general standard used for a preliminary injunction: the moving party must show likely success on the merits, likely irreparable harm without relief, a favorable balance of hardships, and that the public interest supports an injunction. When the government is the opposing party, the last two factors are considered together. The court also explained that temporary relief should preserve the existing situation and prevent irreparable harm only until a preliminary-injunction hearing can occur.

Court’s analysis

The court found that Rivera Larios was likely to succeed on his claim that continued detention violated procedural due process under the Fifth Amendment. Procedural due process generally requires fair procedures before the government deprives a person of liberty. Relying on decisions applying the balancing test from Mathews v. Eldridge, the court stated that Rivera Larios was entitled to a bond hearing before an immigration judge before being arrested or detained. The court also said that, at minimum, there were serious questions about whether the government’s stated justification for detaining him was sufficient when it rested on an arrest alone.

The court found likely irreparable harm because detention without the required hearing likely deprived Rivera Larios of constitutional rights and liberty. It also concluded that the balance of hardships and public interest strongly favored relief. The court reasoned that the public has a strong interest in procedural protections against unlawful detention, while the government’s potential harm was limited to a delay in detention if it later showed by clear and convincing evidence that detention was needed to prevent danger to the community or flight.

The court concluded that immediate release was appropriate to restore the status quo—the last uncontested situation before the dispute. It exercised its discretion not to require an injunction bond because it found no realistic likelihood that the respondents would suffer compensable harm from the injunction.

Order

The court granted Rivera Larios’s motion for a temporary restraining order to preserve the status quo pending further briefing and a hearing. It ordered the respondents to immediately release him and enjoined them from re-detaining him without notice and a hearing before a neutral decisionmaker. It also barred them from removing him from the United States. The order remained effective until October 29, 2025, unless extended by agreement under the conditions described in the order.

The court ordered the respondents to file a status report confirming his release by noon on October 16, 2025. It also ordered them to show cause at a hearing on October 28, 2025, why a preliminary injunction should not issue, and directed counsel to meet and confer about the briefing schedule.