Hector H.A. v. Blanche

Background

Hector H.A. is a citizen of Honduras who entered the United States in late 2022 at age seventeen without an accompanying adult family member. After immigration authorities screened him, he was placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement. He was later released to his sister in Iowa on an order of recognizance.

The Department of Homeland Security later issued Hector a notice to appear in immigration court. In December 2025, after a traffic-related stop in Iowa, immigration authorities took him into custody. An immigration judge denied his asylum application and ordered his removal in April 2026. Hector appealed, and that appeal remained pending when he filed this case. The opinion states that he had been detained for more than six months and that the Board of Immigration Appeals had not yet set a briefing schedule.

Hector filed a petition seeking immediate release or, alternatively, a hearing at which the government would have to show that continued detention was justified by flight risk or danger to the community.

Due-Process Claim

The government argued that Hector’s detention was authorized by 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), which generally requires detention of certain applicants for admission during removal proceedings. The court concluded that the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Avila v. Bondi did not resolve Hector’s constitutional challenges to detention.

The court rejected the government’s argument that Hector had no due-process rights beyond those provided by the detention statute. It distinguished Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam because that case concerned review of an asylum or admission decision involving a person stopped near the border, while Hector challenged his continued physical detention after he had entered the country, been placed in federal custody, and later released to live with his sister. The court also distinguished Demore v. Kim and Banyee v. Garland because those decisions concerned a different detention statute and different categories of detainees.

The court treated Hector’s challenge as a procedural due-process claim. It applied the three-part balancing test from Mathews v. Eldridge: the private interest affected, the risk of an erroneous deprivation and value of additional safeguards, and the government’s interest and administrative burden.

The first factor favored Hector because freedom from physical detention is a significant liberty interest, and his release under the statutory process for unaccompanied minors created a protected interest in continued liberty. The second factor also favored him because the government had not alleged that he violated release conditions or that changed circumstances showed he had become dangerous or likely to flee. The court concluded that an individualized custody hearing could reduce the risk of an unjustified re-detention. The third factor favored Hector because, although a hearing would impose some burden on the government, that burden was outweighed by his liberty interest and the risk of erroneous detention.

Fourth Amendment Claim

Hector argued that his arrest was unlawful because the government did not serve him with an administrative warrant before taking him into custody. The court explained that an immigration arrest must be supported by probable cause and that a warrant must issue before the arrest. But it found that the government had produced a signed warrant issued before the arrest and that Hector had not identified controlling authority requiring the warrant to be served before the arrest. The court therefore recommended no relief on the Fourth Amendment claim.

Petition Verification

The government argued that the petition should be dismissed because Hector’s attorney, rather than Hector himself, signed and verified it. The court rejected that argument. It found that the government cited no authority preventing an attorney from signing and verifying a habeas petition for a client, and it found no material misrepresentations in the petition. The court therefore declined to recommend dismissal based on verification or the government’s allegations about the petition’s factual descriptions.

Recommended Relief

The report and recommendation recommends that the petition be granted insofar as Hector’s current detention, under the circumstances presented and without a meaningful individualized determination, be declared unlawful under the Constitution and federal law.

It recommends ordering the respondents to provide Hector with an individualized custody hearing in Minnesota within seven days after a district judge adopts the report and recommendation. At that hearing, the respondents could seek continued detention by making an individualized showing that detention was justified by flight risk or danger to the community.

The recommendation further provides that Hector should be immediately released if the respondents fail to provide the hearing, claim that they cannot provide constitutionally adequate process, or provide a hearing that lacks notice, a meaningful opportunity to be heard, an opportunity to challenge changed circumstances and the asserted flight or danger risks, or access to counsel. A hearing would also be inadequate if it were otherwise illusory, including because an immigration judge believed the court lacked jurisdiction.

Procedural Status

Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright issued a report and recommendation, not a final order or judgment. The notice states that the recommendation is not directly appealable to the Eighth Circuit. The parties could file specific written objections within the period stated in the notice, and the district court would then consider whether to adopt, reject, or modify the recommendation.