Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Albert Zhamagortsyan, a citizen of Armenia who had lawfully entered the United States in 2020, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in April 2026 while appearing at a Victorville courthouse on an unrelated, still-pending misdemeanor driving-under-the-influence charge that had not resulted in a conviction. ICE placed him in removal proceedings as a visa overstay and detained him at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.
Zhamagortsyan is married to a U.S. citizen, is the father of a three-year-old U.S. citizen child, and had an approved I-130 immediate-relative visa petition along with a pending application to adjust his status to lawful permanent resident. Twice — in May and again in July 2026 — an immigration judge denied him bond, finding that the single pending DUI arrest made him a danger to the community, even though prosecutors had not yet secured a conviction on that charge.
Zhamagortsyan filed a federal habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the Central District of California, arguing that the bond denial violated due process because it rested on an unproven charge and ignored his substantial family and community ties.
The Court’s Holding
Magistrate Judge David T. Bristow granted the petition. Reviewing the immigration judge’s “dangerousness” finding for abuse of discretion, the court applied the multi-factor test from the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision in Matter of Guerra, which weighs a noncitizen’s fixed address, length of U.S. residence, family ties, employment history, record of court appearances, criminal record, immigration history, any flight attempts, and manner of entry.
The court found that the immigration judge had effectively ignored every Guerra factor favoring Zhamagortsyan — his U.S. citizen wife and child, his approved visa petition, his lack of any conviction — and instead built the entire danger finding on a single pending DUI arrest that had never been proven. That selective reliance on an unproven allegation, while disregarding the undisputed equities in the record, was a misapplication of the governing legal standard and therefore an abuse of discretion.
The court separately rejected the government’s argument that Zhamagortsyan was subject to mandatory detention under the 2025 Laken Riley Act, explaining that the Act’s mandatory-detention trigger for theft-related arrests did not apply because he had never been charged with theft and the record did not support the government’s claim that he had been arrested for grand theft auto. Having found the detention unconstitutional, the court ordered Zhamagortsyan’s immediate release and barred ICE from re-detaining him without a constitutionally adequate hearing at which the government bears the burden of proving dangerousness or flight risk by clear and convincing evidence.
Key Takeaways
- An immigration judge’s “danger to the community” finding is reviewed for abuse of discretion, and a judge who focuses on one unfavorable fact while ignoring the Guerra factors favoring release has misapplied the legal standard.
- A pending, unproven criminal charge — as opposed to a conviction — is weak support for a dangerousness finding, especially when weighed against established family and community ties.
- The Laken Riley Act’s mandatory-detention provisions for theft-related arrests require more than a mere accusation; the noncitizen must also be independently inadmissible or deportable under specific statutory provisions.
- Habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 remains available to challenge the constitutional adequacy of an immigration bond hearing even while removal proceedings and a BIA appeal of the bond decision are still pending.
Why It Matters
For California immigration practitioners, this order is a reminder that a pending, unresolved charge — especially a low-level DUI arrest — is not a free pass for ICE to detain a client indefinitely without a meaningful, evidence-based bond hearing. Counsel representing detained clients with strong family ties and clean conviction records can cite this ruling, and the Guerra factors it applies, to challenge a bond denial that rests almost entirely on an unproven arrest.
The decision also narrows the practical reach of the Laken Riley Act in this district, confirming that an arrest alone — without the additional statutory predicates Congress wrote into the law — does not trigger mandatory detention. That distinction matters for any detainee whose record includes an arrest that never led to formal theft-related charges or a conviction.