Reported / Citable
Background
Jose Patricio Sandoval Salmeron, a citizen of El Salvador who entered the United States without authorization in 2006, accumulated a lengthy immigration history spanning nearly two decades. An immigration judge ordered him removed in 2018; the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed in 2021; and the Fifth Circuit denied his petition for review in 2022. A subsequent BIA motion to reopen was denied in 2022, and a follow-on Fifth Circuit petition was dismissed in 2023. In June 2023, Sandoval Salmeron filed a new asylum application with USCIS, which resulted in a 2025 notice to appear — but that NTA was dismissed in April 2026 after an immigration judge agreed with DHS that the petitioner was already subject to a final order of removal. He appealed that dismissal to the BIA, where the matter remained pending.
DHS detained Sandoval Salmeron on March 24, 2026. On May 15, 2026 — roughly two months into his detention — he filed a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, asserting that his continued detention violated procedural due process, substantive due process, and the Accardi doctrine as applied to 8 C.F.R. § 287.8(c)(2). He also sought a stay of removal proceedings. The Government moved for summary judgment, arguing that the detention was lawful under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6) and presumptively reasonable under Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), because it had not yet exceeded six months.
Petitioner responded by framing his claims as an “independent” constitutional challenge — arguing denial of a meaningful individualized custody determination, civil detention without adequate procedural safeguards, and the Government’s failure to provide a mechanism to contest confinement — rather than a purely statutory Zadvydas challenge. The court was unpersuaded by that recharacterization.
The Court’s Holding
Judge Charles Eskridge granted the Government’s motion for summary judgment and denied the habeas petition with prejudice. The court held that Sandoval Salmeron’s approximately two-month detention was presumptively reasonable under Zadvydas, which establishes a six-month benchmark for post-removal-order detention, and that any challenge to continued detention was therefore premature. The court further held that petitioner failed to carry his initial burden under Zadvydas of showing good reason to believe there was no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future — indeed, he did not even attempt to make that showing. The court also noted that any delay beyond the filing date was attributable to Sandoval Salmeron’s own decision to appeal the IJ’s April 2026 order, which tolls the six-month presumptive period under circuit precedent.
On the procedural due process claim, the court relied on its prior decision in Penafiel Clavijo v. Thompson to hold that due process does not require an individualized bond hearing or custody determination — neither § 1225(b)(2)(A) nor § 1231(a)(6) mentions a bond hearing or mandates an individualized assessment of flight risk or dangerousness, and the Constitution does not impose one. On the Accardi doctrine claim, the court held it was foreclosed by its prior ruling in Llanes Carnesolta v. Tate, which established that an allegedly unlawful arrest has no bearing on the legality of post-arrest detention.
The case was dismissed with prejudice.
Key Takeaways
- Post-removal-order detention of less than six months is presumptively reasonable under Zadvydas, and a habeas challenge to such detention is premature — petitioners must wait out that period before a court will engage with whether removal is significantly likely in the foreseeable future.
- A detainee who reframes a detention challenge as an “independent” due process claim does not escape the Zadvydas framework when the underlying detention is governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6) and there is no dispute that a final order of removal exists.
- Delays caused by a petitioner’s own ongoing immigration litigation — including appeals of IJ orders — are equitably tolled against the six-month Zadvydas presumption and do not count in the detainee’s favor.
- Procedural due process does not require an individualized bond hearing for aliens detained under § 1231(a)(6), as the statute itself contains no such requirement.
Why It Matters
This decision illustrates how courts in the Southern District of Texas are applying a consistent, restrictive framework to habeas petitions brought by immigration detainees in the early stages of post-removal-order custody. By emphasizing that two-month detention is plainly premature under Zadvydas and that constitutional repackaging of statutory claims does not open a new door, the court signals that detainees with final removal orders face a steep uphill climb seeking judicial relief before the six-month mark — regardless of how their claims are styled.
The decision also highlights the practical consequence of pursuing collateral immigration litigation: courts in this district treat self-generated procedural delay as equitably tolled against the Zadvydas clock, meaning the filing of appeals or motions to reopen may actually extend, rather than shorten, the period of presumptively lawful detention. Attorneys representing detained noncitizens with final removal orders should factor this dynamic into their litigation strategy.