Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Armando Monjaraz, a native and citizen of Mexico who entered the United States without inspection around 2004, was detained around November 2025. On January 22, 2026, the court granted his first habeas petition and ordered the government to hold a bond hearing. An immigration judge (IJ) held the hearing and denied bond. The court later denied Monjaraz's motion to enforce its order.
Monjaraz filed a second petition on June 3, 2026. After appointing counsel, the court denied it, concluding that the bond hearing did not violate its order or deny due process. It declined to review the immigration court's weighing of the evidence because administrative exhaustion is required for such claims, and it noted that its ruling was without prejudice to his pending bond appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).
On October 5, 2026, Monjaraz, representing himself, filed this third petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. He argued that detention approaching one year had become unconstitutionally prolonged and that the IJ incorrectly weighed the relevant factors in denying bond. He sought immediate release or a bond redetermination hearing. The order notes that briefing before the BIA concluded on July 20, 2026, but it does not state that the BIA has ruled.
The Court’s Holding
The court denied the petition. On the due process claim, it held that prolonged detention did not support relief because Monjaraz had already received a bond hearing before an IJ. It cited two recent decisions from the same district and Rodriguez Diaz v. Garland, 53 F.4th 1189, 1212 (9th Cir. 2022), which states that duration alone cannot sustain a due process challenge by a detainee who has been afforded the process contemplated by 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) and its implementing regulations. The order does not otherwise analyze the length of detention.
Second, to the extent Monjaraz challenged the IJ's bond denial itself, the court held that he had not exhausted his BIA appeal and declined to waive the prudential exhaustion requirement. It set out the Ninth Circuit framework from Hernandez v. Sessions, 872 F.3d 976 (9th Cir. 2017), including the circumstances in which a court may waive exhaustion. It relied chiefly on Leonardo v. Crawford, 646 F.3d 1157, 1160 (9th Cir. 2011), which treated habeas review of an IJ's bond decision before a BIA appeal as an improper shortcut.
The court reasoned that it would not act as a parallel appellate administrative tribunal, because reaching the merits would effectively encourage deliberate bypass of a review process designed to let the agency correct its own errors. The order makes no findings on futility, inadequacy of remedies, or irreparable injury. It denied the Petition and directed the Clerk to close the case, stating that the ruling is without prejudice to any challenge brought once the BIA addresses the bond denial. This is a denial, not a dismissal with leave to amend. The court ordered no release or new hearing and did not decide whether the IJ weighed the bond factors correctly.
Key Takeaways
- In this order, a detainee who received an IJ bond hearing could not sustain a prolonged-detention due process claim based on the length of detention alone.
- The court treated an IJ's bond denial as something to be appealed to the BIA first, and it refused to review the IJ's weighing of the factors while that administrative appeal remained unresolved.
- The court declined to waive prudential exhaustion without findings of futility or irreparable harm, so a petitioner seeking a waiver should be ready to show one of the recognized exceptions.
- The ruling leaves open a renewed challenge after the BIA decides the bond appeal, and it does not decide whether the IJ's bond denial was correct.
Why It Matters
The order applies existing Ninth Circuit authority, Rodriguez Diaz on duration and Leonardo on exhaustion, to a petitioner who had already filed two earlier habeas petitions. Its practical message is that this court will not revisit an IJ's bond decision before the BIA has ruled, and that a completed bond hearing generally defeats a duration-only due process theory.
The decision is an unreported district court order. It binds only the parties and is not binding precedent, though it shows how this court is handling similar petitions. Its reach is limited: the court did not decide whether a long wait for a BIA ruling could later support a different claim, and the order does not address that question.