Noem v. Mullin

Background

Angel O. is an Ecuadorian national who had been living in Minnesota for three years with a pending asylum application and a valid work permit, and with no criminal history. He had been paroled into the United States under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A) in September 2022. On January 12, 2026, ICE officers arrested and detained him as part of an operation called 'Operation Metro Surge,' without providing a warrant or explanation for the arrest. He was briefly detained in Minnesota, then transferred without prior notice to a detention facility in El Paso, Texas.

On January 29, 2026, Angel O. filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus (a court order requiring the government to justify its detention of a person). He argued, among other things, that he was subject to the detention framework under 8 U.S.C. § 1226, which the government violated by arresting him without a required warrant and by not granting him a bond hearing. The government responded with a boilerplate one-page filing asserting that mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2) was justified because any noncitizen living in the country who had entered without inspection was 'seeking admission' and thus subject to mandatory detention.

The Habeas Ruling

On February 2, 2026, the court granted Angel O.'s petition and ordered his release. The court found the government's interpretation of § 1225(b)(2) was novel and without legal support at that time. Separately, and independently of the § 1225/1226 dispute, the court also granted the petition on three additional grounds: (1) Angel O. was a member of a certified class in Maldonado Bautista v. Santacruz, 813 F. Supp. 3d 1084 (C.D. Cal. 2025), and that class action included a declaration that class members could not be mandatorily detained without a bond hearing; (2) Angel O. was arrested without a valid warrant; and (3) Angel O. had been released on temporary parole, had not violated any terms of that release, and had not been provided sufficient due process before the government revoked that parole status. The court ordered the government to release Angel O. in Minnesota by 4:00 p.m. on February 3, 2026. He was released at 8:00 p.m. that day.

The EAJA Motion

Angel O. subsequently moved for attorneys' fees and costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d), in the total amount of $6,093.83. The EAJA allows a prevailing party in a civil action against the government to recover fees and expenses unless the court finds the government's position was 'substantially justified' or special circumstances make an award unjust. The motion must be filed within thirty days of a final judgment.

The government did not dispute that Angel O. was the prevailing party. It argued solely that its interpretation of § 1225(b)(2) was substantially justified. The government pointed to the Eighth Circuit's subsequent decision in Avila v. Bondi, 170 F.4th 1128 (8th Cir. 2026), which held that § 1225(b)(2) requires mandatory detention of non-citizens encountered in the interior of the country, without individualized determination, lending post-hoc support to the government's position. The court acknowledged that Avila provided some support for the government's statutory argument but noted that the Ninth Circuit, in Rodriguez Vazquez v. Bostock, 2026 WL 2196424 (9th Cir. July 30, 2026), along with the Second, Sixth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits, had rejected the government's interpretation.

Substantial Justification Analysis

The court held that Avila did not compel denial of the EAJA motion. The critical point was that the court's original decision to grant Angel O.'s petition rested not only on the § 1225/1226 statutory dispute but also on three separate, independent grounds — the Maldonado Bautista class-action order, the absence of a valid warrant, and the due process violation in revoking parole. The government never disputed any of these three alternative grounds at any point in the litigation, either during the habeas proceedings or in its opposition to the EAJA motion. The court found that the government's failure to respond to these alternative grounds — which ultimately carried the case — was not substantially justified. The burden to prove substantial justification falls on the government, and the government made no argument that its failure to address these grounds was justified, nor did it argue that its detention of Angel O. in violation of Maldonado Bautista, without a valid warrant, or without due process was substantially justified.

Fee Amount

The court agreed with the government in part that certain billing entries were facially unreasonable and excluded the following from the total:

The government expressly declined to challenge the hourly rates charged by Angel O.'s counsel and paralegal. After excluding the three entries above, the court awarded Angel O. $5,690.75 in attorneys' fees and $8.30 in costs.

Disposition

Angel O.'s motion for attorneys' fees under the EAJA (Doc. No. 14) was granted in part. Angel O. was awarded $8.30 in costs and $5,690.75 in attorneys' fees.