Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Ajaya Rana, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 on October 1, 2026, in the Southern District of California. The respondents are the Warden of the Otay Mesa Detention Center and others. In an order dated October 14, 2026, Judge Robert S. Huie described the filing as Rana's fifth habeas petition challenging his detention and listed four earlier petitions in the same court, bearing case numbers 26-cv-285, 26-cv-2563, 26-cv-3829, and 26-cv-4873, with dates running from January 16 to August 26, 2026. The court noted that the new petition raised arguments similar to those in the earlier four.
On February 11, 2026, Rana received a bond hearing, and an immigration judge denied bond on the ground that he posed a risk of flight. The petition attacked that bond determination and also asserted that his detention had become unconstitutionally prolonged.
The ruling is a short, unreported order by a single district judge. It carries no precedential weight beyond its persuasive value.
The Court’s Holding
The court denied the petition and directed the Clerk to close the case. Its first ground was exhaustion. Relying on Leonardo v. Crawford, 646 F.3d 1157, 1160 (9th Cir. 2011), the court stated that a petitioner must appeal an immigration judge's adverse bond determination to the Board of Immigration Appeals before seeking habeas review of it. Because Rana's challenges to the bond ruling were unexhausted, the court said, as before, that it declined to reach their merits. It therefore made no finding on whether the immigration judge's risk-of-flight decision was correct.
The second ground addressed the prolonged-detention claim. The court quoted an Eastern District of California decision, Campbell v. Warden, California City Detention Facility, for the proposition that such a due process claim fails when the petitioner received a bond hearing before an immigration judge. It also cited 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). Because Rana had received a bond hearing on February 11, 2026, the court rejected the claim.
The court concluded that Rana had not carried his burden of showing that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States, as 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3) requires. The order does not say whether the denial is with or without prejudice, and it does not state that any later petition would be barred.
Key Takeaways
- The court treated an immigration judge's bond denial as something that must first be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and it declined to review the unexhausted bond challenges in district court.
- Under the authorities the court cited, a detainee who has received a bond hearing before an immigration judge will have difficulty showing a due process violation based on prolonged detention alone.
- The court did not rule on whether the February 11, 2026 risk-of-flight finding was correct, so that question remains unresolved in this case.
- The order simply denies the petition and closes the case; it does not say whether the denial is with or without prejudice, so it should not be read as barring future petitions.
- This is an unreported district court order with no binding effect on other courts; its value lies in how it applies Leonardo and Rodriguez Diaz.
Why It Matters
For detainees and their counsel, the order shows how a repeat habeas filer can be turned away without any review of a bond denial. The court's reliance on Leonardo treats skipping the Board of Immigration Appeals as a threshold defect, and the words 'as before' suggest the court had already declined to reach the same unexhausted challenges in earlier petitions. The order does not state whether Rana has appealed to the Board, so what happens in that forum is not addressed.
The prolonged-detention discussion is also brief. The court relied on Rodriguez Diaz to treat a completed bond hearing under § 1226(a) as the process due, with duration alone insufficient, and on a nonbinding district court decision for the same point. It did not analyze the length of Rana's detention or consider any claim that the bond hearing itself was deficient, so whether a different record or a challenge to the adequacy of the hearing would fare differently is left open.