Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Jose Alfonso Arias Garcia, a citizen and national of Honduras, arrived at the Hidalgo, Texas Port of Entry on August 16, 2023 with a scheduled CBP One appointment to seek asylum. Immigration officials issued him a Notice to Appear charging inadmissibility for lacking a valid entry document, then paroled him into the United States, where he relocated to Des Moines, Washington, worked in construction, and joined a church. He was arrested for domestic violence on February 24, 2024, but the charges were dismissed.
On August 3, 2026, ICE agents with the Seattle Fugitive Operations team stopped Petitioner's vehicle and arrested him; per the Form I-213, the agents were looking for a different individual, a Colombian national. Petitioner was detained at the California City Correctional Center in the Eastern District of California. He filed this 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas action in the Western District of Washington on October 7, 2026, and it was transferred to this Court on October 19, 2026.
The petition raises a single procedural due process claim challenging re-detention without written notice and a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker, seeking immediate release and a permanent injunction against re-detention absent notice and a hearing at which Respondents must prove flight risk or dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence. Respondents maintain he is lawfully detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1) and that the entry fiction doctrine and Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam foreclose any additional due process.
The Court’s Holding
The magistrate judge granted Petitioner's motion to substitute Christopher Chestnut, Warden of the California City Detention Facility, as Respondent, applying the immediate-custodian rule for core habeas challenges. On the merits, the court assumed without deciding that Petitioner is a humanitarian parolee and found that such parolees possess a protected liberty interest in continued freedom from detention. The court rejected Respondents' argument that the entry fiction doctrine and Thuraissigiam foreclose that interest, relying on the Ninth Circuit's recent Padilla v. ICE decision, which held that Thuraissigiam was an admission, not a detention, case and that the entry fiction limits due process rights regarding admission, not detention-related claims.
Applying the three-factor Mathews v. Eldridge test, the court found that Petitioner's re-arrest without pre-deprivation notice and hearing violated his Fifth Amendment right to procedural due process. The court found Respondents' counter-Mathews analysis unpersuasive, noted that Respondents misconstrued the claim as a request for a bond hearing on prolonged detention rather than a challenge to re-detention without pre-deprivation procedures, and observed that the dismissed domestic-violence charge and the absence of any identified exigent circumstances left no justification for revoking parole without process.
The court therefore recommended that the habeas petition be granted on its sole procedural due process claim, that Respondents immediately release Petitioner on the supervision conditions in place at his August 3, 2026 re-arrest, that they return his documents and possessions, and that they file a compliance notice within two court days. If the government seeks to re-detain him, it must give at least seven days' notice and provide a bond hearing before an immigration judge at which it must prove by clear and convincing evidence that he is a flight risk or danger. The recommendation expressly does not address detention if Petitioner becomes subject to an executable final order of removal.
Key Takeaways
- The magistrate judge recommended granting the habeas petition and ordering immediate release of an asylum seeker re-detained by ICE without written notice or a pre-deprivation hearing.
- Humanitarian parolees possess a protected liberty interest in continued freedom from detention regardless of whether § 1225 or § 1226 governs their detention.
- Under the Ninth Circuit's Padilla decision, the entry fiction doctrine and Thuraissigiam limit due process rights regarding admission, not detention-related claims.
- Under Mathews v. Eldridge, re-arresting a previously paroled noncitizen without pre-deprivation notice and a hearing before a neutral decisionmaker violates Fifth Amendment procedural due process.
- Any future re-detention requires at least seven days' notice and a bond hearing with a clear-and-convincing-evidence burden, while detention after an executable final removal order is left open.
Why It Matters
This order adds to a growing body of Eastern District of California and Ninth Circuit decisions holding that noncitizens released on humanitarian parole retain a constitutionally protected liberty interest requiring pre-deprivation procedures before re-detention, applying Padilla to reject the government's entry-fiction and Thuraissigiam arguments for asylum applicants detained under § 1225(b)(1).
Procedurally, the magistrate judge shortened the objection period to three days given the urgency of the relief, and the recommendations await review by the assigned District Judge, who has previously ruled for similar due process claims in substantively identical cases.