Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Lazaro Alexis Garcia Gonzalez, a Cuban national, was paroled into the United States on October 19, 2023. According to Customs and Border Protection, his humanitarian parole ran until June 12, 2025. After release on parole he married a U.S. citizen, and they have two children. The record contains no evidence that Immigration and Customs Enforcement tried to remove him after the parole period ended.
Florida Highway Patrol arrested him on June 29, 2026, on a misdemeanor driving-under-the-influence charge that remains pending. Florida authorities held him until ICE took him into custody on June 30, 2026, on an administrative arrest warrant and issued a Notice to Appear charging him as removable under INA section 212(a)(7)(A)(i)(I) for lacking a valid visa or entry document. He is held at the California City Detention Facility in this district.
He filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition on August 31, 2026, raising four claims, including a due process challenge to detention without a bond hearing. The government answered that he is mandatorily detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2) and that Rodriguez Vasquez v. Bostock, 183 F.4th 1160 (9th Cir. 2026), is limited to people who entered without inspection. The matter was referred to a magistrate judge under Local Rule 302 and 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1).
The Court’s Holding
The magistrate judge did not decide which statute governs. The findings state that, whether detention falls under § 1225(b) or § 1226(a), re-arresting Petitioner without pre-deprivation notice and a hearing violated his Fifth Amendment right to procedural due process. They rely on other decisions from this district, including Juan Carlos V.B. v. Chestnut, Charan S. v. Warden of the California City Detention Facility, and Jose A.C. v. Warden of the California City Correctional Center. Those decisions treated notice and custody-determination hearings as the general process for ending humanitarian parole and, in Charan S., applied the Mathews factors.
On remedy, the court cited Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113 (1990), for the point that the Constitution usually requires a hearing before a deprivation of liberty. Post-deprivation remedies are a special case suited to mitigating circumstances such as a final removal order, criminal history, or individualized changed circumstances justifying re-detention. None appears in this record, and after more than three months Petitioner has had no post-deprivation hearing before an immigration judge.
The recommended disposition is to grant the petition on count one only and order immediate release on the same conditions that applied before June 30, 2026, with no added restrictions unless found necessary at a future pre-deprivation custody hearing. Before any re-detention the government would have to give at least seven days' notice and hold a bond hearing before a neutral arbiter at which bond eligibility is considered. The other claims were not reached, and the final order should not address detention if Petitioner becomes subject to an executable final removal order of which he has notice.
Key Takeaways
- These are findings and recommendations for District Judge Troy L. Nunley, not a final judgment, and the magistrate judge set a shortened three-day objection period because of the nature of the relief.
- The recommended reasoning does not turn on whether § 1225(b) or § 1226(a) authorizes detention, and the findings do not decide the government's argument that Rodriguez Vasquez is limited to people who entered without inspection.
- Post-deprivation process is treated as adequate only in special circumstances such as a final removal order, criminal history, or individualized changed circumstances, and the findings say none appears in this record.
- Any future re-detention would require at least seven days' notice and a pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral arbiter at which bond eligibility is considered.
- Only count one would be granted. The remaining claims are left unaddressed, and detention after an executable final removal order is expressly left open.
Why It Matters
These findings and recommendations have not been adopted and carry no precedential weight of their own. Their value lies in showing how courts in this district have applied pre-deprivation process requirements to people re-detained after release on parole.
Open questions include whether the district judge adopts the recommendation after the shortened objection period, which statute governs detention, whether Rodriguez Vasquez reaches parolees, the three unaddressed claims, and what process applies after an executable final removal order.