Quintanilla Mendoza v. Noem

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This is one of more than 300 habeas corpus petitions filed in this Court in which a petitioner seeks release from immigration custody during removal proceedings. Petitioner in this case is a citizen of Nicaragua, in removal proceedings, and has no final order of removal.¹

Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241

The primary habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241, authorizes a petitioner to plead in federal court that he or she is "in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States."²This Court has jurisdiction over § 2241 claims challenging pre-removal order immigration detention.³

8 U.S.C. §§ 1225 and 1226

On February 6, 2026, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Buenrostro- Mendez v. Bondi. That opinion is now binding precedent on the district courts in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and forecloses any argument that Petitioner is "in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws . . . of the United States" for want of a bond hearing under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a).⁴ Petitioner, in removal proceedings, is not "clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted" and is therefore subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A).⁵

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Due Process

In 2001, the Supreme Court held in Zadvydas v. Davis⁶that indefinitely detaining persons ordered removed, because no country will accept them, violates the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause.⁷Such "indefinite civil detention" raises "a serious constitutional problem."⁸ Importantly, the Court distinguished persons with removal orders from those still in removal proceedings, and found that "post-removal-period detention, unlike detention pending a determination of removability or during the subsequent 90-day removal period, has no obvious termination point."⁹Two years later, in Demore v. Kim, the Supreme Court reiterated that the post- removal order detention periods in Zadvydas ran afoul of the Fifth Amendment because they were

"indefinite" and "potentially permanent."¹⁰Like Petitioner in this case, the petitioner in Demore was in removal proceedings with no final order of removal.¹¹Accordingly, the Court held the detention period in Demore did not violate any due process right because it had a "definite termination point" and was neither "indefinite" nor "potentially permanent"¹²—the detention period would necessarily terminate when the removal proceedings concluded, either through deportation within the 90-day removal period¹³or release because of the government's failure to secure a removal order. "Zadvydas . . . made clear that limited civil detention, without bond, is constitutional as applied to deportable aliens,"¹⁴and the Supreme Court made explicitly clear in

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Demore that "[d]etention during removal proceedings is a constitutionally permissible part of that process."¹⁵

As in Demore, Petitioner's detention is neither "indefinite" nor "potentially permanent"

because there is a "definite termination point": the conclusion of the removal proceedings and subsequent removal, or alternatively, release for want of a removal order. And just as there was no due process violation when the Demore petitioner was detained under a mandatory detention statute¹⁶during removal proceedings, so too is there no due process violation in this case when Petitioner is detained during removal proceedings under a similar mandatory detention statute.¹⁷ As all binding Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit precedent confirms that mandatory detention without a bond hearing during removal proceedings passes constitutional muster, Petitioner's due process argument fails.

Conclusion

The petition for a writ of habeas corpus [ECF No. 2] is DENIED. Any and all pending motions are DENIED AS MOOT and the Clerk shall CLOSE THE CASE.

SO ORDERED.

SIGNED and ENTERED on April 1, 2026. ______________________________

LEON SCHYDLOWER

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE