Reported / Citable
Background
Erika Judith Martinez Ortega, a Mexican citizen, entered the United States without inspection in December 2000 and lived in the country for approximately twenty-five years. On August 4, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement took her into custody and issued a Notice to Appear, charging her with inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) and 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I).
In December 2025, an immigration judge terminated Ortega’s removal proceedings, finding her a strong candidate for adjustment of status. The judge noted that she had been paroled into the United States specifically to confer eligibility for adjustment, that her U.S. citizen daughter had filed an immediate-relative visa petition with no waiting period, and that her twenty-five years of U.S. residence and six U.S. citizen children — one of whom served in the military — strongly favored a favorable exercise of discretion.
The government appealed the immigration judge’s termination order to the Board of Immigration Appeals on January 2, 2026, and Ortega remained in immigration detention throughout that appeal. Proceeding pro se, she filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal district court, arguing that continued detention without a bond hearing violated her due process rights.
The Court’s Holding
Senior District Judge Sim Lake granted the habeas petition. The court reasoned that, based on the well-reasoned findings of the immigration judge, it was likely that Ortega would not ultimately be removed from the United States. Because she remained detained solely as a consequence of the government’s own appeal — not because of any independent basis for continued confinement — due process required that she be afforded a bond hearing.
The court ordered respondents to either release Ortega or provide her a bond hearing by June 22, 2026, and directed the government to file a status report with the court by June 29, 2026.
Key Takeaways
- Prolonged immigration detention pending a government-initiated appeal of a favorable termination order can violate due process, entitling the detainee to a bond hearing.
- A federal court may grant habeas relief where the likelihood of removal is low and continued detention lacks adequate procedural justification.
- An immigration judge’s prima facie finding of adjustment-of-status eligibility — particularly where the detainee has deep family and community ties — can be pivotal in assessing the constitutionality of continued detention.
Why It Matters
This decision highlights the due process limits on the government’s ability to hold noncitizens in custody while it pursues administrative appeals of decisions favorable to the detainee. Where an immigration judge has found a strong case for relief and the government’s appeal is the only obstacle to release, courts may decline to allow open-ended detention in the absence of individualized bond proceedings.
The ruling is significant for practitioners representing detained immigrants whose removal proceedings have been terminated or whose cases present strong equities. It reinforces that the government’s litigation posture does not, by itself, justify indefinite civil detention without a neutral assessment of flight risk and danger to the community.