Rosas Rosas v. Becerra

Background

Oliver Rosas Rosas is a Mexican national who came to the United States when he was three. He completed a combined five-year state prison sentence based on convictions for second-degree robbery, felony carjacking, and recklessly evading the police. He finished his sentence on May 2, 2022, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him because of his criminal history.

The Department of Homeland Security placed him in removal proceedings under provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act concerning presence in the United States without admission or parole and crimes involving moral turpitude. An immigration judge ordered him removed and denied his application for relief from removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals denied his appeal, and he then petitioned the Ninth Circuit for review. That petition automatically stayed his removal to Mexico.

Rosas Rosas filed this petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a statute allowing a federal court to review unlawful custody. He argued that his detention for more than fifteen months violated substantive and procedural due process. He sought release or a bond hearing before an immigration judge.

Jurisdiction

The government argued that the case belonged in the Eastern District of California because Rosas Rosas was held there at the privately owned Golden State Annex. The court acknowledged that the warden of a detention facility is generally the proper respondent in a custody challenge. But it followed persuasive decisions from the Northern District holding that the immediate custodian of an immigrant detainee may lack actual authority over the detainee. The court therefore held that jurisdiction existed in the Northern District of California.

Substantive Due Process

Rosas Rosas argued that his prolonged detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c) was excessive and unjustified because he was not a flight risk or danger to the community. The government argued that mandatory detention under that statute was constitutionally permissible and that any delay resulted from Rosas Rosas’s decision to pursue his immigration case.

The court explained that the Supreme Court had upheld the facial constitutionality of mandatory detention under § 1226(c), while leaving open challenges arguing that detention was unconstitutional as applied to a particular person. The court considered Rosas Rosas’s as-applied challenge. It then followed other decisions from the district that treated similar prolonged-detention claims as procedural-due-process challenges rather than substantive-due-process challenges. The court did not order release directly on a substantive-due-process theory.

Procedural Due Process

The court applied the three-factor balancing test from Mathews v. Eldridge. That test considers the private interest affected by the government’s action, the risk of an erroneous deprivation and the value of additional safeguards, and the government’s interest and the burdens of additional procedures.

The court found that Rosas Rosas had a significant interest in freedom from custody. It also found a significant risk of an erroneous deprivation because Rosas Rosas had established that he was not a flight risk, submitted substantial evidence of rehabilitation, and presented a strong plan for reentry addressing concerns about danger to the community. In the court’s view, a neutral decisionmaker needed to consider and weigh that evidence. The court found that the government’s interest in continuing detention without a bond hearing was low.

Disposition and Remedy

The court granted the petition because Rosas Rosas’s prolonged detention without an individualized bond hearing violated procedural due process. It ordered an immigration judge to conduct a bond hearing within ten days of the order. At that hearing, the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that continued detention is justified. If it cannot do so, it must release Rosas Rosas. The order resolved the petition identified as ECF No. 1.