Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Grabiel Barthelemy Ramirez, a native of Cuba who entered the United States in January 2019, was served with a notice to appear charging him as inadmissible under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I). He applied for asylum and said he had applied for permanent residency; the opinion states that the application remained pending. He was arrested several times between 2023 and 2026, most relevantly in August 2025 for burglary of an occupied dwelling. The court noted that the record did not establish whether that charge had been dropped or remained pending.
In June 2026, Ramirez was arrested for driving without a license and referred to ICE by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. He was released to ICE custody and transferred to the California City Detention Facility, where he remained detained without a bond hearing on whether continued detention was necessary. His petition argued that the refusal to provide a bond hearing violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights. Respondents defended the detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c)(1)(E). The court explained that habeas jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3) includes challenges to immigration detention, and that the writ reaches custody alleged to violate the Constitution or federal law.
The Court’s Holding
The court first held that the mandatory-detention provision appeared to apply because Ramirez had been charged as inadmissible under § 1182(a)(7) and charged with burglary. It recognized decisions construing the Laken Riley Act to apply only when a person is currently charged with or arrested for an enumerated crime, rather than when charges were never filed or were dismissed. Because Ramirez neither specified in his petition nor clarified in reply that the burglary charges had been dropped, the court assumed they remained current and that § 1226(c)(1)(E) applied.
That conclusion did not end the due process inquiry. The court acknowledged Ninth Circuit doubts about arbitrary prolonged detention without process and district decisions recognizing that unreasonably long mandatory detention without a bond hearing can violate due process. It applied eight considerations: detention length, likely future duration, comparison with time served for the removal-triggering crime, the crime’s nature, detention conditions, petitioner-caused and government-caused delays, and the likelihood of a final removal order.
The court found that approximately four months of detention favored the government because it remained within the period discussed in Demore v. Kim when mandatory detention under § 1226(c)(1) was upheld as facially constitutional. Ramirez supplied no facts or factor-based argument concerning the remaining considerations. Without further evidence that detention had become indefinite or unconstitutionally prolonged in his particular circumstances, he was not entitled to habeas relief. The petition was denied without prejudice, and the Clerk was directed to close the case and enter judgment for Respondents.
Key Takeaways
- A current burglary charge, combined with an inadmissibility charge under § 1182(a)(7), supported application of mandatory detention under § 1226(c)(1)(E) on this record.
- The court did not decide whether dismissed charges would change the statutory analysis because Ramirez did not establish that his charges had been dropped.
- Approximately four months of detention did not establish unconstitutional prolongation, particularly when the petitioner offered no evidence addressing the other relevant factors.
- The denial was without prejudice, leaving room for a later showing that detention has become indefinite or unconstitutionally prolonged based on the petitioner’s particular circumstances.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes statutory authority for mandatory detention from the separate constitutional question whether its duration has become excessive. Even where § 1226(c)(1)(E) applies, prolonged detention may eventually require a bond hearing, but a petitioner must support that as-applied claim with facts about duration, future proceedings, delays, conditions, and the other identified factors.
The immediate outcome was denial of habeas relief and judgment for Respondents, not a ruling that prolonged mandatory detention is always constitutional. The without-prejudice disposition and the court’s express request for further evidence define the issue left open: whether additional time or case-specific circumstances would make Ramirez’s detention unconstitutional.