Meza v. Bonnar

Background

Brenda Meza had been ordered removed to Guatemala in 2007 but was granted withholding of removal. After additional criminal convictions, the Department of Homeland Security began new removal proceedings in 2016 and detained Meza for approximately thirteen months. An immigration judge released her on bond in August 2017. The Board of Immigration Appeals later vacated that bond order based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez, but immigration authorities did not take Meza back into custody.

Meza filed this petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, the federal statute that allows a person in qualifying custody to challenge detention that violates federal law or the Constitution. She claimed a liberty interest in her conditional release and argued that the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause required a hearing before immigration authorities could detain her again. The court issued a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction barring re-detention without an administrative hearing while the petition was pending. The court later stayed the case while related litigation proceeded.

While the case was stayed, Meza successfully moved to terminate the removal proceedings. An immigration judge terminated them on July 26, 2019, after finding that defects in the notice to appear deprived the Immigration Court of jurisdiction. The Government then moved to dismiss Meza’s petition as moot. Meza argued that the case remained live and alternatively invoked exceptions for collateral consequences, voluntary cessation, and wrongs capable of repetition yet evading review.

Mootness ruling

The court granted the Government’s motion to dismiss and dismissed the petition as moot. It reasoned that Meza had effectively obtained the relief she requested because she had not been re-detained, and the termination of her removal proceedings meant the court could no longer order protections during those proceedings.

The court concluded that Meza’s claimed liberty interest was tied to the removal proceedings that began in 2016. The vacated bond order did not keep her currently released on bond, and the unresolved return of the bond money did not provide a basis for continuing the petition or show that the petition could remedy that issue.

Exceptions to mootness

The court rejected the collateral-consequences exception. Possible future detention or immigration proceedings were too speculative, and relief in this petition could not determine Meza’s constitutional rights in proceedings based on future facts. The court also rejected the voluntary-cessation exception because the controversy ended when Meza successfully obtained termination of the removal proceedings, not because DHS voluntarily stopped the challenged conduct.

The court rejected the “capable of repetition yet evading review” exception as well. It found no indication that any future detention would be too brief for judicial review, and Meza had not shown a reasonable expectation or demonstrated probability that the same controversy would recur between the parties.

Disposition

The court found that leave to amend was not appropriate because the petition concerned terminated proceedings and any future constitutional claim would necessarily involve new, unknown facts. The court stated that such a claim should be brought in a separate petition. It granted the Government’s motion to dismiss the petition as moot, ordered that a separate judgment be entered, and terminated the motion docket entry. The opinion did not state that the dismissal was with or without prejudice.