Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Juan Jose Cardona Elias, a Mexican citizen with a 1993 removal order, reentered the United States in 2023 and sought protection from return to Mexico. After release on bond during withholding-only proceedings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him again in February 2025. An immigration judge denied Convention Against Torture relief, the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed his appeal, and his petition for review remained pending in the Ninth Circuit.
After more than nineteen months in custody without a new bond hearing, Cardona Elias filed a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. The government argued that 8 U.S.C. § 1231 required detention because the reinstated removal order remained administratively final even while appellate review continued. Cardona Elias also contended that immigration judges in the district could not provide a neutral hearing and requested immediate release.
The Court’s Holding
Chief Judge Cynthia Bashant agreed that Section 1231 governed and authorized mandatory detention. But statutory authority did not end the constitutional inquiry. The court explained that detention can become arbitrary and unreasonably prolonged when it continues without any individualized process, and habeas relief remains available to remedy custody that violates due process.
The duration and cause of delay were decisive. Cardona Elias had spent more than nineteen months detained without a bond hearing, and the record did not attribute the delay to him; roughly twelve months resulted from the pending Ninth Circuit proceeding. The court ordered an immigration judge to hold a bond hearing within fourteen days. At that hearing, the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that Cardona Elias presents a danger or flight risk. If no timely hearing occurs, he must be released. The court found insufficient evidence for categorical distrust of every immigration judge and therefore declined immediate release.
Key Takeaways
- A detention statute may authorize custody while due process independently requires an individualized hearing after detention becomes unreasonably prolonged.
- The court examined both elapsed time and responsibility for delay, making a clear chronology important in prolonged-detention habeas petitions.
- The ordered hearing places the clear-and-convincing burden on the government to establish danger or flight risk.
- A broad claim that all immigration judges are biased requires evidence; generalized assertions did not justify bypassing the administrative bond process.
Why It Matters
The order gives Southern District practitioners a concrete remedy for detainees whose appellate proceedings substantially lengthen custody. It also shows why counsel should document each interval of detention, continuance, agency review, and court review rather than relying only on the total number of months.
For the government and detention facilities, the fourteen-day deadline is operationally significant: missing it triggers release under the writ. For detainees, the decision does not guarantee bond or release, but it secures a hearing with a demanding burden of proof and rejects the idea that mandatory detention necessarily permits custody without process for an indefinite period.
The form of relief is carefully calibrated. The court did not invalidate the removal order or decide the pending CAT appeal, and it did not hold that nineteen months creates an automatic numerical cutoff in every case. It found this detention unreasonable on this record and supplied the process needed to test continued custody. At the hearing, both sides can present current evidence rather than rely on the historic criminal record or the mere existence of appellate proceedings. Practitioners should calendar both the hearing deadline and the conditional release consequence stated in the writ.