Reported / Citable
Background
Antonio Morales Diaz, a Mexican citizen, entered the United States without inspection in 2008 and resided in the country continuously for nearly eighteen years. On May 14, 2026, ICE arrested and detained him at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas — without affording him a bond hearing. His detention followed a July 2025 policy shift in which ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons issued an internal memorandum declaring that noncitizens who entered without inspection are “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b), not discretionary detention under § 1226(a). The Board of Immigration Appeals codified that position in Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I. & N. Dec. 216 (BIA 2025). Under the new regime, such individuals are ineligible for bond hearings and may be released only through DHS’s parole authority.
Through counsel, Morales Diaz filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, arguing that his warrantless, no-hearing detention violated both the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The government responded that the Fifth Circuit’s February 2026 ruling in Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi foreclosed his claims, and that the Supreme Court’s decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam eliminated any due process entitlement for persons classified as applicants for admission.
The Court’s Holding
Judge Xavier Rodriguez granted the petition and ordered ICE to release Morales Diaz by June 17, 2026 under conditions no more restrictive than those in place before his arrest. The court first confirmed jurisdiction, reiterating its prior holdings that INA provisions stripping review of removal proceedings (§§ 1252(g), (b)(9)) are inapposite to challenges to detention, and that § 1226(e) bars review only of discretionary detention decisions, not mandatory-detention claims. The court also excused exhaustion of administrative remedies, finding that a BIA trip would be futile given that body’s binding adverse precedent, and that constitutional detention challenges require no administrative exhaustion at all.
On the merits, the court held that Buenrostro-Mendez foreclosed only the statutory challenge; the Fifth Circuit expressly reserved the due process question, and government counsel conceded at oral argument that no constitutional claim was before that court. Turning to Thuraissigiam‘s “entry fiction,” the court identified two dispositive distinctions. First, Morales Diaz challenged his detention, not the admission process — Thuraissigiam addressed only the process due for admission and removal proceedings. Second, Morales Diaz had lived in the United States interior for approximately eighteen years, establishing substantial connections to the country; Thuraissigiam involved a petitioner apprehended twenty-five yards from the border who had never been released into the interior. Relying on Zadvydas v. Davis and Wong Wing v. United States, the court held that once an alien enters the country and develops substantial ties, the Due Process Clause applies in full.
Applying the three-factor balancing test of Mathews v. Eldridge, the court found that all three factors — the weighty private interest in freedom from physical restraint, the high risk of erroneous deprivation without any individualized hearing, and the minimal administrative burden of providing a bond proceeding — supported the constitutional requirement of an individualized assessment of flight risk and dangerousness before detention. Because Morales Diaz received no such hearing, his continued detention violated the Fifth Amendment’s procedural due process guarantee.
Key Takeaways
- The Fifth Circuit’s Buenrostro-Mendez ruling bars statutory INA challenges to the government’s § 1225(b) mandatory-detention policy, but leaves procedural due process claims fully intact for noncitizens with substantial U.S. presence.
- Thuraissigiam‘s “entry fiction” is limited to challenges to admission and removal proceedings; it does not eliminate due process rights for noncitizens who entered years ago and established substantial connections to the United States interior.
- Under Mathews v. Eldridge, detaining a long-term U.S. resident without any individualized determination of flight risk or dangerousness violates procedural due process, regardless of the mandatory-detention language in § 1225(b).
- The court explicitly departed from its own prior holdings in Canales-Melgar v. Noem and Goguev v. Noem, joining a growing consensus of Western District of Texas decisions reaching the same result.
- Upon any re-detention, the government must afford Morales Diaz a bond hearing; the court’s order did not preclude future detention following proper procedure.
Why It Matters
This decision is part of a rapidly developing body of district court law testing the constitutional limits of the current administration’s policy of reclassifying long-settled interior residents as “applicants for admission” subject to no-bond mandatory detention. By grounding the right to a bond hearing in the Fifth Amendment rather than the INA, Judge Rodriguez’s ruling survives the statutory roadblock erected by Buenrostro-Mendez and signals that courts will look to Mathews balancing — not congressional silence on bond hearings — to assess the constitutionality of indefinite civil detention for individuals with years of U.S. presence.
The opinion also marks a notable judicial course-correction: Judge Rodriguez expressly overruled two of his own prior rulings that had applied the entry fiction to interior residents, citing the “growing consensus” among district courts. As circuit courts have yet to definitively resolve the due process question left open by Jennings v. Rodriguez and Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, this ruling adds to the accumulating record that will likely shape eventual appellate review of the constitutionality of the government’s no-bond detention policy as applied to long-term residents.