Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Magdalena Zepeda Gomez, held in ICE custody, petitioned the Central District of California for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. The companion order explains that she was ordered detained after a six-month prolonged-detention hearing held on September 25, 2026, under the Rodriguez framework, which the order describes as operating in this district through a districtwide injunction rather than agency procedure. Under that framework, at the six-month mark the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that continued detention is justified by flight risk or danger to the public.
The immigration judge found that she posed no danger to the public but still ordered her detained on flight-risk grounds. After reviewing the record, Magistrate Judge Steve Kim concluded that the immigration judge did not require Respondents to meet the clear-and-convincing burden on flight risk. The court issued a separate order granting the petition, and this one-page judgment, filed the same day, implements that order and terminates the case on the docket.
The Court’s Holding
The judgment provides that Petitioner is to be released from ICE custody forthwith under a written order of supervision in compliance with 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(3). The reasoning appears in the companion order, not the judgment. That order held the Rodriguez hearing was tainted by legal error because the immigration judge failed to apply the government's burden of proof on flight risk. It treated this as a pure question of law reviewed de novo, citing Fan v. Bondi.
The court excused exhaustion before the Board of Immigration Appeals. It reasoned that whether an immigration judge strictly follows the Rodriguez burden-shifting framework is not an issue that benefits from agency review, and that the Board could not alter a framework that presents a pure legal question. The court also found it hard to see how any reasonable adjudicator could find flight risk by clear and convincing evidence on the established facts. A footnote observes that Respondents appeared to have misunderstood the status of Petitioner's prior and current withholding proceedings, and that the immigration judge appeared to rely on that mistake.
The court retained jurisdiction to enforce its order and judgment if Respondents revoke the supervision order and re-detain her in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act or the agency regulations governing valid revocation, citing 8 C.F.R. §§ 241.4(l) and 241.13(i). The order cautions that a different factual record, free of the overriding legal error, might yield a different case-specific result, especially under a lower preponderance standard of proof.
Key Takeaways
- This is a final district-court judgment granting a § 2241 petition and ordering release under a written order of supervision; it is not an appellate ruling and has only persuasive value.
- The ground for relief was the immigration judge's failure to hold the government to its clear-and-convincing burden on flight risk at the six-month hearing, even though the judge found no danger to the public.
- The court found exhaustion before the Board of Immigration Appeals unnecessary because the burden-of-proof question is a pure legal issue the Board cannot change.
- The court retained jurisdiction only to enforce its order if supervision is revoked and Petitioner is re-detained in violation of the statute or regulations; it did not bar all future detention.
- The companion order leaves open that a different record with no legal error, particularly under a preponderance standard, could produce a different outcome.
Why It Matters
Read with its companion order, this short judgment shows a district judge treating a misallocated burden at a Rodriguez hearing as a legal error that justifies direct release rather than a new hearing, and declining to require Board review first. The court reached release by assessing the record itself, finding that the established facts could not support a flight-risk finding under the clear-and-convincing standard.
Its reach is limited. It is a single-petitioner ruling by a magistrate judge, and the court expressly confined its conclusion to the established facts. Enforcement jurisdiction depends on a future revocation and re-detention that violates statutory or regulatory procedures, so practitioners should read the judgment together with the order and not treat it as a broad rule against re-detention.