Cruz v. Kandiyohi County Jail and Department of Homeland Security
Gertrudiz Bejarano Cruz, also known as GERTRUDEZ BEJARANO CRUZ and GERTRUDIZ RODRIGO BEJARANO CRUZ v. Kandiyohi County Jail and Department of Homeland Security
- John Tunheim
- 0:25-cv-04127
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 2
In Bejarano Cruz v. Kandiyohi County Jail, Judge Talwani transferred the case to Minnesota because the Massachusetts court lacked authority over a detainee held there.
Immigration detainees who file habeas corpus petitions in a federal district court where they are not physically held. This order illustrates that such petitions must generally be filed in the district where the detainee is actually confined, not in any district the petitioner chooses.
What happened
In Bejarano Cruz v. Kandiyohi County Jail and Department of Homeland Security, an immigration detainee named Gertrudiz Bejarano Cruz, held at the Kandiyohi County Jail in Willmar, Minnesota, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus (a court order challenging the lawfulness of his detention) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He claimed he was being wrongfully denied a bond hearing after an immigration court in Minnesota ruled it had no authority to consider his bond request under a recent immigration appeals board ruling. He asked the court to order the immigration court to hold a bond hearing.
The Massachusetts court found that it had no power to hear the case because Bejarano Cruz is physically held in Minnesota, not Massachusetts. Under federal law, a court can only grant habeas relief over people within its territorial boundaries. The general rule, confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, is that the proper place to file such a petition is in the district where the person is actually confined — in this case, Minnesota. The court reviewed whether any exceptions to this rule applied but found none.
Rather than simply dismissing the case, Judge Talwani ordered the case transferred to the United States District Court for Minnesota under a federal transfer statute that allows courts lacking authority to send a case to the correct court when doing so serves the interests of justice. No merits of Bejarano Cruz's bond hearing claim were decided.
The detailed version
- Cruz v. Kandiyohi County Jail and Department of Homeland Security · No. 0:25-cv-04127
- John Tunheim
- Oct. 23, 2025
Background
Gertrudiz Bejarano Cruz (also known as Gertrudez Bejarano Cruz and Gertrudiz Rodrigo Bejarano Cruz) is an immigration detainee held at the Kandiyohi County Jail in Willmar, Minnesota. He filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 — a federal statute allowing a person in custody to ask a court to examine whether their detention is lawful — in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The $5.00 filing fee was paid.
Petitioner's Claim
Bejarano Cruz challenged a decision by an immigration court in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, which found it had no jurisdiction (legal authority) to consider his bond application. That ruling was based on a recent decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) — the federal administrative appellate body for immigration cases — in Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I&N Dec. 216 (BIA Sept. 5, 2025). Bejarano Cruz asked the Massachusetts court to order the immigration court to conduct a bond hearing so he could seek release on reasonable terms while continuing to pursue his immigration applications.
Jurisdictional Analysis
The court found that it lacked habeas jurisdiction (the legal authority to hear habeas petitions) because Bejarano Cruz is not physically present within the District of Massachusetts. The court cited Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426 (2004), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that district courts are limited to granting habeas relief "within their respective jurisdictions" under 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a). Under the "immediate custodian rule," the proper respondent in a challenge to present physical confinement is the person or entity with direct custody over the petitioner, and the proper court is the one with territorial jurisdiction over that custodian — meaning the district where the petitioner is confined.
The court acknowledged that exceptions to the immediate custodian rule exist, referencing Ozturk v. Trump, C.A. No. 25-cv-10695-DJC, 2025 WL 1009445, at 5–8 (D. Mass. Apr. 4, 2025), but found no basis for any such exception here.
Disposition
Rather than dismissing the petition outright, Judge Talwani ordered the case transferred to the United States District Court for Minnesota pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1631. That statute provides that when a court finds it lacks jurisdiction, it shall transfer the action to a court in which the action could have been brought at the time it was filed, if such a transfer is in the interest of justice. The court made no ruling on the merits of Bejarano Cruz's underlying claim that he is entitled to a bond hearing.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.