Ortiz Vargas v. Jennings

Background

Simon Ortiz Vargas was born in Mexico in 1978 and had lived in the United States since 2000. He had been married for 21 years and had four children, three of whom were United States citizens. In 2010, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor domestic-violence charge and received three years of probation. In 2019, he was found to have violated probation and was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Vargas was held at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center from August through December 2019. While detained, he was hospitalized with life-threatening complications from severe, untreated diabetes, including a diabetic coma, according to the opinion. An immigration judge later ordered his release on a $10,000 bond after finding that mandatory detention under the Immigration and Nationality Act did not apply. After the bond was posted, he was released in December 2019. The immigration judge later reconsidered that decision and revoked the bond. Vargas appealed that decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Vargas filed this case challenging his possible re-detention. His claims alleged violations of procedural and substantive due process under the Fifth Amendment and violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The court had previously granted a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction barring the respondents from re-arresting or re-detaining him unless and until an administrative hearing with adequate notice determined whether mandatory detention applied.

Motion to stay

Vargas asked the court to stay, or pause, the proceedings while the Ninth Circuit considered appeals in Fraihat v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Zepeda Rivas v. Jennings. He also cited Ortega v. Bonnar, but the government had voluntarily dismissed that appeal, so the court did not consider it in deciding the motion.

The court explained that it could stay a case when doing so would promote efficiency and fairness. It considered the possible harm from a stay, the hardship of requiring the parties to continue, and whether a stay would simplify the issues, evidence, or legal questions.

Court’s analysis

The court found that Fraihat raised serious questions about ICE’s treatment of medically vulnerable detainees. In that case, the court had provisionally certified two nationwide groups of detainees at heightened risk from COVID-19 and had issued a preliminary injunction requiring ICE to take specific steps concerning custody conditions. The opinion states that diabetes was included among the relevant risk factors and disabilities. The Ninth Circuit appeal had been fully briefed and argued, and its outcome could significantly affect Vargas’s claim that re-detention would violate substantive due process.

The court also found that Zepeda Rivas could affect this case because Vargas had previously been detained at Mesa Verde, the facility involved in that litigation. The Zepeda Rivas court had certified a class and issued preliminary relief concerning detention conditions. The Ninth Circuit had heard argument in that appeal and referred the case to mediation. The court concluded that either appeal could narrow the issues, prevent duplicative litigation, and conserve judicial resources.

The respondents argued that a stay would impair the government’s ability to enforce federal immigration law and cause a lengthy delay. The court characterized those arguments as broad and insufficiently focused on the circumstances of this case. It also noted that the appeals were advanced enough that a prolonged delay did not appear likely.

Disposition

The court granted Vargas’s motion to stay proceedings. It ordered the parties to file a status statement within seven days after the Fraihat and Zepeda Rivas appeals were resolved. The opinion did not decide the merits of Vargas’s underlying claims.