Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Alex Alberto Flores Hernandez, held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has litigated four related actions against the warden of the California City facility in the Eastern District of California, numbered 1:26-cv-03870, 1:26-cv-04569, 1:26-cv-06169, and 1:26-cv-08099. The court concluded the actions were related under Local Rule 123(a) because assignment to the same district judge and magistrate judge would promote substantial efficiency and economy and was likely to be convenient for the parties. Under Local Rule 123(c), the judge with the lowest-numbered case reassigned the highest-numbered case, 1:26-cv-08099, to himself and Magistrate Judge Jeremy D. Peterson. The order directed the new caption 1:26-cv-08099-DAD-JDP and told the Clerk to adjust civil case assignments. It stressed that relating cases is not consolidation.
In the reassigned case, petitioner filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 on October 2, 2026, challenging his immigration detention. The same day he moved for a temporary restraining order seeking immediate release. On October 8, 2026, respondent moved to dismiss, contending this was petitioner's third successive habeas petition filed in the district. The court had earlier warned petitioner, in its June 24, 2026 ruling in case 1:26-cv-04569, that future petitions raising the same grounds would be summarily denied without further explanation. Those grounds were that his pre-final-removal-order detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) violated due process or the Immigration and Nationality Act, or that his bond hearing did not comply with an order of the District of Maryland.
The Court’s Holding
The court found that petitioner's claims in the reassigned case largely raise the same grounds he asserted in his earlier petitions, and it dismissed the petition as successive. It also addressed one argument that might be read as new. To the extent petitioner contends that the length of his detention entitles him to a second bond hearing as a matter of due process, without the showing of changed circumstances that § 1226(a) requires, the court held that the Ninth Circuit has foreclosed the argument. Citing Rodriguez Diaz v. Garland, 53 F.4th 1189, 1212 (9th Cir. 2022), it explained that duration alone cannot sustain a due process challenge by a detainee who has been afforded the process contemplated by § 1226(a) and its implementing regulations.
The court dismissed the petition as successive, denied the temporary restraining order motion as moot, granted respondent's motion to dismiss, and directed the Clerk to close case 1:26-cv-08099-DAD-JDP. The order does not state whether the dismissal is with or without prejudice. Its dismissal and closure directions apply only to the reassigned case, and it does not dispose of the other three related cases. It also does not describe the outcome of every earlier petition beyond its cited June 24, 2026 ruling.
Key Takeaways
- Relating cases under Local Rule 123 places them before the same district and magistrate judges but does not consolidate them.
- The court dismissed the October 2026 petition as successive because it largely repeated grounds from earlier petitions, after having warned petitioner that such filings would be summarily denied.
- As applied here under Rodriguez Diaz, the duration of detention alone does not entitle a detainee who received the process contemplated by § 1226(a) to a second bond hearing without a showing of changed circumstances.
- The temporary restraining order motion seeking release was denied as moot because the petition was dismissed, not because of a separate ruling on its merits.
Why It Matters
This is an unpublished district court order, so it carries no precedential weight beyond this litigation. Its value lies in showing how a court may manage serial immigration-detention habeas filings: it relates the cases, reassigns the newest filing, and dismisses it in a short order that applies binding circuit authority.
The duration analysis rests on Ninth Circuit authority applied to the facts described in Rodriguez Diaz. The order does not decide whether a materially different claim, such as one based on changed circumstances, would be treated differently.