Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Jhon Kennedy Castillo Garcia, an immigration detainee, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the Eastern District of California, challenging his detention. The Warden of the California City Correctional Center, named as respondent, moved to dismiss. The Warden asserted that Castillo Garcia is subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1231 because an immigration judge ordered his removal on July 13, 2026, and, according to the Warden, he did not appeal that order. Castillo Garcia opposed the motion.
The assigned magistrate judge issued findings and recommendations dated October 9, 2026. Contrary to the Warden's assertion, the magistrate judge found that publicly available information from the Executive Office for Immigration Review showed that the Board of Immigration Appeals had received a case appeal that was currently pending. Because the Board accepted the appeal, the magistrate judge found that Castillo Garcia is not the subject of an administratively final order of removal, so the proper detention authority is 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) rather than § 1231. The magistrate judge cited the Ninth Circuit's decision in Torres-Casas v. Blanche, 184 F.4th 1121, 1126 (9th Cir. 2026), and recommended that the motion to dismiss be denied. The parties were told that objections were due within 14 days and that failing to object could waive certain rights on appeal.
The Court’s Holding
No objections were filed, and the deadline passed. The district judge performed a de novo review under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and concluded that the findings and recommendations were supported by the record and proper analysis. The court therefore adopted the October 9, 2026 findings and recommendations in full. The magistrate judge's finding about the pending Board appeal, and the conclusion that § 1226(a) governs detention, thus became the court's ruling. The order is brief and adds no separate statutory analysis beyond adopting those findings. Because no one objected, it also does not address any competing arguments about the finality of the immigration judge's order beyond what the magistrate judge resolved.
The court denied the Warden's motion to dismiss and referred the matter to the magistrate judge for further proceedings. The order is not a grant of habeas relief. It does not order release, does not order a bond hearing, and does not decide whether the detention is otherwise lawful. It resolves only the Warden's threshold argument that mandatory detention under § 1231 required dismissal. The petition remains pending, and the merits are left for the magistrate judge to address in the first instance.
Key Takeaways
- A district court may deny a motion to dismiss a § 2241 petition where the magistrate judge found, based on publicly available agency information, that a Board of Immigration Appeals appeal is pending, as happened here.
- On the findings adopted here, a pending Board appeal meant the petitioner was not subject to an administratively final removal order, so detention authority was § 1226(a) rather than § 1231.
- The Warden's contention that Castillo Garcia did not appeal was an assertion in the motion; the magistrate judge's contrary finding, based on the agency's public information, is what the court adopted.
- Because no objections were filed, the court's de novo review ended in adoption in full, and the order itself offers little independent reasoning.
- The order is not a final judgment and grants no release or bond hearing; it only denies dismissal and returns the case to the magistrate judge, leaving the merits open.
Why It Matters
The order shows how a detention dispute can turn on a factual question about the status of administrative proceedings. Section 1231 governs detention of noncitizens with administratively final removal orders, while § 1226(a) governs detention while removal is still being decided. The Warden's mandatory-detention argument depended on the removal order being final, and the adopted findings rejected that premise after comparing the Warden's assertion with the Board's publicly available case information. The practical stakes are significant, because the statutory source of detention authority shapes which arguments and procedures are available. Here that threshold question was resolved against the government at the motion-to-dismiss stage, but only as a threshold matter.
The order is a district court ruling in a pending case and is not marked as reported, so its precedential weight is limited. Its value is in showing how an Eastern District of California judge applied the Ninth Circuit's Torres-Casas v. Blanche, as cited by the magistrate judge, to a pending-appeal scenario. Practitioners should note that the dispute arose from a mismatch between the Warden's representation and the agency's public information, so verifying Board appeal status from agency records before filing is prudent. Whether Castillo Garcia is entitled to any particular relief, such as a custody hearing, remains undecided and will be addressed in later proceedings.