Marcos L. v. Noem
- Michael Davis
- 0:26-cv-00676
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 8
Counsel of record per CourtListener. Firm names are approximate and have been consolidated across spelling variants.
In Marcos L. v. Noem, Magistrate Judge Elkins recommended granting habeas relief and immediate release because officials did not show a lawful basis for detaining him.
Marcos L. would be released from detention and receive the return of his work permit, driver’s license, and other seized items if the recommendation is adopted. Respondents would be required to carry out those actions. The document is not itself a final order.
What happened
In Marcos L. v. Kristi Noem, et al., Marcos L. challenged his detention after immigration officials arrested him without a warrant. He said USCIS had granted him deferred action and work authorization while reviewing his U-visa application, and that those grants remained valid.
The court found that nothing in the record showed USCIS had revoked his deferred action or work authorization. It concluded that his continued detention lacked a demonstrated basis and violated his constitutional right to due process. The court did not need to decide his separate argument that he was entitled to a bond hearing.
Magistrate Judge Shannon G. Elkins recommended granting the detention challenge and ordering Marcos’s immediate release into Minnesota, along with the return of his work permit, driver’s license, and other seized property. The judge also recommended denying Marcos’s emergency request for a temporary restraining order as moot. This was a report and recommendation, not a final district court order, and the parties could file objections.
The detailed version
- Marcos L. v. Noem · No. 0:26-cv-00676
- Michael Davis
- Feb. 3, 2026
Background
Marcos L. filed a petition challenging his immigration detention and an emergency request for a temporary restraining order. He argued that his detention violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, and the Fifth Amendment.
Marcos had submitted a petition for U nonimmigrant status. USCIS later determined that the petition was bona fide, granted him deferred action on January 28, 2025, and issued employment authorization and deferred action valid through January 30, 2029. The opinion explains that deferred action delays removal through prosecutorial discretion but does not itself give a person immigration status. DHS arrested Marcos without a warrant on January 26, 2026. He was being held at Fort Snelling near St. Paul, Minnesota.
Respondents’ Response
The court ordered Respondents to explain the legal basis and duration of Marcos’s detention and to provide supporting affidavits and exhibits. Respondents filed a one-page response that incorporated arguments from another case but did not provide the requested documents or a warrant justifying the arrest. Marcos replied that Respondents had not addressed the significance of his deferred-action status.
Analysis
The opinion discussed two possible theories. First, Marcos argued that detaining him despite his USCIS-granted deferred action violated due process. Second, he argued that if the Immigration and Nationality Act authorized his detention, he was subject to discretionary detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), which would require a bond hearing, rather than mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2).
The court concluded that Marcos’s first argument alone required recommending his release. Relying on the reasoning of other courts, it determined that an unrevoked grant of deferred action protects a person from removal while it remains valid. The record did not show that USCIS had revoked Marcos’s employment authorization, terminated his deferred action, or determined that either grant was no longer warranted or had been issued in error. The court therefore found no demonstrated basis for his detention and concluded that his continued detention violated the Fifth Amendment’s due-process protection.
Recommendation and Procedural Status
Magistrate Judge Shannon G. Elkins recommended that the petition be GRANTED, that Marcos be immediately released from detention into Minnesota, and that Respondents return his work permit, driver’s license, and any other documents, property, or effects seized during his arrest. Because the petition was recommended for granting, the judge recommended that the emergency motion for a temporary restraining order be denied as moot.
The document is a report and recommendation, not a final order or judgment of the District Court. The notice stated that the parties could file specific written objections within two days of filing, and that the report was not directly appealable to the Eighth Circuit.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.