Reported / Citable
Background
Angel Lisandro Lopez Gonzalez, a Guatemalan citizen, entered the United States without inspection in November 2013 and has resided continuously in the country since then. On June 13, 2026, he was arrested and detained at Karnes County Immigration Processing Center in Texas without being afforded a bond hearing.
The government detained Lopez Gonzalez under a July 2025 policy change initiated by ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons. Under this new interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the government reclassified all noncitizens present in the U.S. without formal admission or parole as “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b), rather than discretionary detention under § 1226(a). This policy reversed nearly three decades of consistent government practice treating such noncitizens as entitled to bond hearings.
Lopez Gonzalez filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his detention as violating both the INA and his Fifth Amendment due process rights. The government argued that recent precedent, particularly the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi (February 2026), foreclosed such challenges.
The Court’s Holding
The court granted Lopez Gonzalez’s habeas petition and ordered his immediate release under conditions no more restrictive than those he experienced before detention. The court rejected the government’s arguments that statutory provisions divested the court of jurisdiction or that the Buenrostro-Mendez decision foreclosed due process challenges.
Critically, the court distinguished between statutory and constitutional claims. While Buenrostro-Mendez rejected statutory challenges to the government’s novel interpretation of § 1225, the Supreme Court in that case explicitly did not address—and the Fifth Circuit did not decide—whether mandatory detention under this interpretation violates the Due Process Clause. The court found that the government’s reliance on statutory text to defeat due process claims employed “circular reasoning,” because constitutional protections cannot be eliminated by statute alone.
The court applied the three-factor test from Mathews v. Eldridge and found that detaining a noncitizen with substantial presence in the United States without any individualized assessment of flight risk and dangerousness violates procedural due process. The court distinguished the Supreme Court’s Thuraissigiam decision—which had applied reduced due process protections to aliens at the border—on two grounds: (1) Lopez Gonzalez challenges detention procedures, not removal or admission determinations, and (2) his substantial 13-year presence in the interior United States differentiates him from someone detained at the border moments after entry. The court reasoned that the Due Process Clause protects “all persons” within U.S. territory, and erasing a noncitizen’s years-long domestic presence “is, in essence, to erase his rights.”
Key Takeaways
- Noncitizens with substantial presence in the U.S. interior retain due process rights to individualized hearings on flight risk and dangerousness, even if they lack formal admission.
- The distinction between removal proceedings (governed by § 1225) and detention procedures is constitutionally material; Thuraissigiam’s reduced protections apply to the former, not the latter.
- The Buenrostro-Mendez decision forecloses statutory challenges but does not resolve due process claims, which remain available for “exceptional” cases.
- Failure to exhaust administrative remedies does not defeat habeas jurisdiction in the immigration detention context, particularly where constitutional procedural due process is at stake.
Why It Matters
This decision represents a significant rejection of the government’s July 2025 policy shift and reflects a growing consensus among federal district courts that mandatory detention without individualized hearings violates due process for immigrants with substantial U.S. presence. It creates a practical firewall between removal proceedings (where Congress has greater authority to set procedures) and detention procedures (where constitutional protections apply). The decision underscores that statutory classifications alone cannot override the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process to all persons within U.S. territory.
The ruling has broad implications for immigration enforcement. By distinguishing between initial-entry scenarios (where reduced due process may apply) and detention of persons already present in the interior (where full due process protections attach), the court establishes that the length and nature of a noncitizen’s presence in the country affects the procedural safeguards they receive. This may require the government to revert to bond-hearing practices for noncitizens detained under the new § 1225(b) interpretation—a potentially substantial operational change for ICE. The decision also clarifies that Buenrostro-Mendez, though foreclosing statutory arguments, does not prevent courts from considering constitutional challenges to immigration detention schemes.