Ameen v. Garland
- William Orrick
- 3:22-cv-00140
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 10
In Ameen v. Garland, Judge Orrick denied the government’s dismissal motion and granted the habeas petition in limited part, ordering a new bond hearing.
Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, who remained in immigration detention, was entitled to a new bond hearing; the government was required to provide it and carry the specified burden of proof.
What happened
In Ameen v. Garland, Omar Abdulsattar Ameen challenged the fairness of an immigration judge’s bond hearing after he had been detained since 2018. He argued that the judge improperly required him to prove that he was not a flight risk or danger to the community.
The government argued that the Northern District of California lacked authority to hear the case because Ameen was detained in the Eastern District of California. The court rejected that argument, finding that the San Francisco Immigration and Customs Enforcement office had ultimate control over the private facility where Ameen was held. The court also found that the bond hearing violated due process because the government, not Ameen, should have had to prove the grounds for continued detention.
Judge Orrick denied the motion to dismiss and granted the petition in limited part. He ordered the government to provide Ameen with a constitutionally sufficient bond hearing within 30 days, with the government required to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Ameen remained a flight risk or danger to the community. The court did not decide whether the immigration judge’s underlying bond decision was correct.
The detailed version
- Ameen v. Garland · No. 3:22-cv-00140
- William Orrick
- Apr. 19, 2022
Background
Omar Abdulsattar Ameen filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the constitutional and procedural adequacy of his December 2021 immigration bond hearing. He asked for release from detention while his extradition proceedings were resolved or, alternatively, a constitutionally sufficient bond hearing.
Ameen had been in federal custody since 2018 while Department of Homeland Security removal proceedings were pending. His extradition proceedings ended in his favor in April 2021, after which he returned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. An immigration judge held a bond hearing on December 10, 2021, concluded that the judge had authority to conduct a hearing under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), and denied bond after finding that Ameen had not shown he was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community. Ameen appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the government filed a cross-appeal concerning whether detention was mandatory.
Jurisdiction
The respondents moved to dismiss, arguing that § 2241 jurisdiction belonged only in the Eastern District of California, where Ameen was detained. The court rejected that argument. Ameen was held at the Golden State Annex, a private detention facility operated by The GEO Group, Inc. under a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The court found that the San Francisco ICE Area of Responsibility, led by Acting Field Office Director Polly Kaiser, had ultimate control over the facility. Because the respondents had not shown that a lower-level office in the Eastern District was the proper official to provide relief, the Northern District had jurisdiction over the petition.
Bond hearing ruling
The court granted the petition in limited part. It held that the immigration judge violated Ameen’s due process rights by placing on Ameen the burden of proving that he was not a flight risk or danger to the community. The court relied on its earlier decision in a related proceeding and stated that the government must bear that burden even at an initial bond hearing under § 1226(a). The government had presented no intervening Ninth Circuit authority requiring a different result.
The court also ruled in the alternative that Ameen was entitled to another bond hearing because of his prolonged detention and the risk of wrongly depriving him of liberty. The court declined to require Ameen to exhaust his pending administrative appeal before granting relief, reasoning that the agency had repeatedly placed the burden improperly on detained people and that the record was sufficiently developed.
Disposition
The court denied the government’s motion to dismiss and granted the habeas petition in limited part. It ordered the respondents to provide Ameen with a constitutionally compliant bond hearing within 30 days of the order. At that hearing, the government must show by clear and convincing evidence that Ameen remains a flight risk or danger to the community. The court expressly stated that it did not reach the merits of whether the immigration judge’s underlying bond determination was correct.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.