Reported / Citable
Background
Jorge Munoz Islas, a Mexican citizen who entered the United States without inspection and lived here for at least approximately four years, was taken into immigration custody following a traffic stop on May 22, 2026. He was held at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Taylor, Texas, with removal proceedings pending. The government classified him as an “applicant for admission” and invoked 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2) to justify mandatory detention without a bond hearing, a position the government had hardened through its administrative interpretation in Matter of Yajure Hurtado.
Munoz Islas filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 on June 8, 2026. The court ordered the government to show cause within three days. Notably, Munoz Islas had a prior dismissed DWI arrest and a 2023 misdemeanor assault conviction for which he served eighty days, though the government did not assert a separate detention basis for that conviction.
The statutory question of whether § 1225(b)(2) applies to long-resident noncitizens had recently been resolved against petitioners by a Fifth Circuit panel in Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, 166 F.4th 494 (5th Cir. 2026), which held that the statute covers individuals in Munoz Islas’s position. The court therefore turned exclusively to whether detention without any bond hearing violated the Constitution.
The Court’s Holding
Judge Robert Pitman granted the petition on Fifth Amendment procedural due process grounds, holding that detaining Munoz Islas — a person who had lived in the United States for approximately four years before his arrest — without any individualized assessment of flight risk or dangerousness violates the Due Process Clause. The court applied the three-part Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test and found all three factors favored the petitioner: his substantial liberty interest in freedom after years of residence in the country; the high risk of erroneous deprivation given the complete absence of any process to contest detention; and the government’s interest in appearance and community safety, which is adequately served by a bond hearing rather than automatic detention.
The court distinguished the Supreme Court’s decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam on two grounds: Munoz Islas does not challenge the admission process or assert a right to remain, but only seeks a chance to apply for release; and unlike Thuraissigiam — who was arrested within twenty-five yards of the border — Munoz Islas had lived in the United States for years before being detained during a traffic stop. The court also rejected the government’s arguments that the challenge was an unreviewable substantive due process claim and that the unpublished Fifth Circuit decision in Wekesa foreclosed a bond-hearing right, finding Wekesa nonprecedential and inapplicable on its facts.
The court further noted that while § 1225(b) is often labeled “mandatory detention,” it is something of a misnomer: the statute expressly permits release on parole for humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit so long as the person presents no security or flight risk, meaning individualized findings on those questions are directly relevant — unlike the situation in Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe, on which the government relied. Consistent with the approach taken by numerous other federal district courts in Texas, the court ordered Petitioner’s immediate release and enjoined further detention absent a bond hearing at which the government bears the burden of proving dangerousness or flight risk by clear and convincing evidence.
Key Takeaways
- The Fifth Circuit’s ruling in Buenrostro-Mendez resolved the statutory question under § 1225(b)(2) against long-resident noncitizens, but it expressly left open the constitutional due process question — and district courts in the Western District of Texas continue to grant habeas relief on that independent ground.
- Under Mathews v. Eldridge, a noncitizen who has lived in the United States for years possesses a cognizable liberty interest that, combined with the total absence of any process to contest detention, outweighs the government’s generalized interest in detention — particularly given that bond hearings previously took place for decades without administrative burden.
- The court ordered immediate release rather than a remand for a bond hearing, reasoning that a post-deprivation hearing cannot cure an already-completed unlawful deprivation of liberty.
- At any future bond hearing, the burden falls on the government to justify continued detention by clear and convincing evidence of dangerousness or flight risk.
Why It Matters
This decision is part of a growing body of rulings from federal district courts in Texas — and across the country — holding that the government’s expanded use of § 1225(b)(2) to detain long-resident immigrants without bond hearings runs afoul of the Fifth Amendment, regardless of how the statute is interpreted. The pattern of decisions reflects a significant judicial check on the administration’s detention policy, even after the Fifth Circuit resolved the statutory issue in the government’s favor in Buenrostro-Mendez.
For practitioners, the case confirms that a due process challenge to § 1225(b)(2) detention remains viable for noncitizens with substantial ties to the United States, and that administrative exhaustion need not be pursued when the government’s own position makes exhaustion futile. The clear-and-convincing burden imposed on the government at any ordered bond hearing also sets a demanding standard that immigration courts will need to apply in these remanded proceedings.