Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Manuel Perez de Corcho Medina, a native of Cuba, had been a lawful permanent resident since 2016 under the Cuban Adjustment Act. After leaving the country and attempting to re-enter near the Texas border in April 2024, he was placed in removal proceedings and released on his own recognizance. He then failed to appear at his immigration hearing and was ordered removed in absentia in October 2024.
Separately, Perez de Corcho Medina was arrested in Florida in 2024 on four counts of sexual battery of a minor and, in July 2025, pleaded guilty to four counts of felony battery. ICE encountered him at a Florida probation office in October 2025 while he was reporting on those convictions and detained him based on the outstanding in absentia removal order. He then successfully moved to reopen his removal proceedings, arguing he never received proper notice of his original hearing. The government’s motion for reconsideration of that reopening was later granted, reinstating the removal order, and Perez de Corcho Medina appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Throughout, the government maintained he was mandatorily detained without a bond hearing, first under the post-removal-order statute and then, after reopening, under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b).
The Court’s Holding
The court first rejected the government’s reliance on § 1225(b), following its own prior rulings and those of other Ninth Circuit district courts holding that § 1225(b) does not apply to noncitizens who were previously released by the government on their own recognizance.
Turning to due process, the court found Perez de Corcho Medina had a protected liberty interest arising from his roughly two years of release before this detention. But applying the Mathews v. Eldridge factors, the court reached a different result than in companion cases ordering outright release: here, the government’s interest in avoiding a pre-deprivation hearing was not low, because Perez de Corcho Medina had been re-detained shortly after convictions for a serious offense, and courts have recognized that providing advance notice and a hearing before detaining someone with a recent serious conviction could be impracticable or could motivate flight. That distinction tipped the second Mathews factor in the government’s favor, even though the first and third factors still favored the petitioner. The court therefore granted the petition only in part: rather than ordering immediate release, it required the government to provide a substantive bond hearing within fourteen days, at which the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that he is a danger to the community or a flight risk, with counsel permitted to appear on his behalf.
Key Takeaways
- A recent conviction for a serious offense can justify detaining a previously-released noncitizen without a hearing beforehand, even though the same noncitizen still retains a liberty interest from the earlier release.
- In such cases, courts are ordering a prompt bond hearing as the remedy rather than outright release, splitting the difference between the petitioner’s liberty interest and the government’s legitimate public-safety concerns.
- 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b) continues to be rejected as a basis for mandatory, no-hearing detention of noncitizens previously released into the interior of the United States, regardless of intervening procedural history like a reopened removal order.
- At any bond hearing ordered as a remedy, the burden remains on the government to prove danger or flight risk by clear and convincing evidence.
Why It Matters
This decision shows how the recency and severity of a petitioner’s criminal history can change the remedy in immigration-detention habeas cases from full release to a court-ordered bond hearing. For practitioners on both sides, it is a useful marker of where courts are drawing the line between cases warranting immediate release and those warranting only a prompt, properly-allocated hearing.
Immigration defense counsel representing clients with serious recent convictions should be prepared to argue for a bond hearing as an achievable, intermediate remedy, while agency counsel can expect courts to scrutinize whether the underlying conviction is recent and serious enough to justify skipping advance process.