Enrique Cristobal Meneses v. Jennings

Background

California’s governor commuted Enrique Cristobal Meneses’s sentence in November 2020. Meneses, a citizen of Mexico, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after his release from prison in connection with removal proceedings. An immigration judge denied his application for relief from removal, and Meneses appealed that decision to the Bureau of Immigration Appeals (BIA).

A different immigration judge later held a two-day bond hearing and decided that Meneses should remain detained because the government had shown by clear and convincing evidence that he was dangerous to the public and a flight risk. Meneses appealed the bond decision to the BIA, and that appeal remained pending.

Meneses filed a petition challenging his detention under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and sought a temporary restraining order requiring his release or a constitutionally adequate bond hearing.

Jurisdiction

The government argued that the Northern District of California lacked jurisdiction because Meneses was detained in Kern County, within the Eastern District of California. It asked the court to dismiss the petition or transfer the case.

The court rejected that jurisdiction objection. It concluded that the Northern District was an appropriate forum for a habeas petition involving a person detained by the director of the San Francisco Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office. The court also said the government had not shown that David Jennings, the San Francisco official named as a respondent, was an improper respondent.

Administrative exhaustion

The court held that Meneses had not exhausted his administrative remedies because his appeal of the bond decision was still pending before the BIA. Administrative exhaustion generally requires a person to complete the agency’s review process before asking a federal district court to review the agency decision. The court explained that exhaustion allows the agency to correct its own errors and develop the record.

Exhaustion in this setting is a discretionary, non-jurisdictional requirement. A court may excuse it when administrative review is inadequate, futile, likely to cause irreparable injury, or otherwise invalid. Meneses argued that exhaustion should be excused because his continued detention caused irreparable harm and because the BIA appeal would be futile.

The court found that Meneses had not established a basis for excusing exhaustion. It noted that his challenge appeared principally to concern how the immigration judge weighed the evidence and exercised discretion. The court also said that Meneses had not identified the type of major procedural defect that could support immediate judicial review, such as using the wrong burden of proof or requiring an unaffordable bond.

The court assumed, for purposes of the ruling, that Meneses had presented a reviewable and plausible claim that the bond hearing may not have fully satisfied due process because the immigration judge relied too heavily on his criminal history and not enough on evidence of rehabilitation. Even so, the court concluded that the BIA could address that issue and that Meneses had not shown the appeal would necessarily produce a predetermined result. The court also found that Meneses’s claim of irreparable harm depended on assuming that a constitutional violation had occurred, which the court had not decided.

Disposition

The court denied the temporary restraining order without deciding the usual preliminary-injunction factors, including likelihood of success and irreparable harm. It stayed the case pending the BIA’s resolution of Meneses’s bond appeal. The parties were directed to file a joint status report by January 18, 2022, or sooner if circumstances warranted. The court said it could revisit whether exhaustion should be excused if the appeal appeared likely to take substantially longer than the estimated seven months.