Jaminton R. B. v. Mullin

Background

Jaminton R. B. filed an amended petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging his immigration detention. He claimed that the detention violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process and his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures. He sought immediate release or, alternatively, a hearing about his continued detention.

The opinion states that Jaminton R. B. is a citizen of Colombia who entered the United States without inspection or admission on February 17, 2024. Immigration authorities apprehended, processed, and released him the next day. He later applied for protection under the Convention Against Torture, and the government authorized him to work while his application was processed. The opinion states that he had lived in Texas for the previous two years.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him on June 12, 2026, after surveillance connected him to a construction site in North Dakota. The government submitted a declaration from Deportation Officer Jason V. Lee and attached an immigration arrest warrant, Form I-200, and other documents. Officer Lee said that agents stopped Jaminton R. B.’s car on June 8, conducted additional investigation over the next four days, and arrested him on June 12. But the Form I-200 and Form I-213 were dated June 8, which suggested that the arrest decision had been made on the day agents encountered him. Jaminton R. B. was being held at the Kandiyohi County Jail in Willmar, Minnesota.

Fourth Amendment analysis

The court found Officer Lee’s account not credible because it conflicted with the documents attached to his own declaration. The court also could not determine who signed the documents because the government had redacted the officials’ names. The court observed that the visible initials of the officer who signed the Form I-200 appeared to be “K.W.,” raising questions about whether Officer Lee personally knew the facts in his declaration. The court therefore gave the government’s evidence very little, if any, evidentiary value.

The court identified three Fourth Amendment questions: whether a Form I-200 administrative warrant can qualify as a constitutionally valid warrant; whether the particular Form I-200 was procedurally valid; and whether it was issued before the arrest. The court recommended finding that a Form I-200 administrative warrant has limited constitutional usefulness and is not a Fourth Amendment “warrant” because it is issued within the law-enforcement agency rather than by a neutral and detached judge.

The court also found several problems with this Form I-200. The signatures were not legible, the issuing officer’s typed name was redacted, and the space for the name or number of the interpreter who supposedly read the warrant to Jaminton R. B. in Spanish was blank. The conflict between Officer Lee’s declaration and the documents also made it impossible to determine when the warrant was issued compared with the arrest. The court said these problems independently supported finding the arrest unconstitutional.

The court further concluded that the earlier Notice to Appear issued in February 2024 could not serve as the required notice for a June 2026 administrative warrant. That notice identified a particular hearing in December 2025. The record contained no removal order and no evidence that Jaminton R. B. failed to attend that hearing. The court rejected the government’s suggestion that he might not have appeared as unsupported. It also concluded that, even if he had failed to appear, the earlier notice could not logically support a warrant issued 15 months later for a different arrest because a Notice to Appear is tied to the specific hearing date and time listed in it.

Timing of the warrant and recommended disposition

The court explained that a Form I-200 must be issued before an arrest and detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226. If it is issued after the arrest, the arrest is warrantless, and the court stated that immediate release is the remedy. Because the government’s evidence did not reliably establish when the arrest or warrant issuance occurred, the government failed to produce evidence rebutting the presumption that the warrantless arrest was unreasonable.

The court therefore recommended that the petition be granted and that Jaminton R. B. be immediately released from immigration detention. It did not reach his Fifth Amendment due-process arguments. This was a report and recommendation, not a final district-court order or judgment. The notice stated that objections were due July 20, 2026, and responses to objections were due July 27, 2026.