Resultcan Demetgul, a Turkish citizen who entered the United States in 2022, was arrested by DHS while driving his truck in El Paso, according to his petition, and held at the Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico. According to the petition, he had been redetained after three years without a bond hearing and without any assessment of whether material facts — such as flight risk or danger to the community — had changed since his initial release.
Chief Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales of the District of New Mexico granted Demetgul's habeas petition on March 4, 2026, in case No. 2:26-cv-00342-KG-DLM. The court held that because Demetgul was arrested years after effecting an entry into the United States, the mandatory no-bond detention regime under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) does not apply to him. Instead, § 1226(a) governs, entitling him to an individualized bond hearing.
The statutory question — whether a noncitizen who entered years earlier is still "seeking admission" and thus subject to mandatory detention — sits at the center of a live circuit split. The Fifth Circuit recently held that while such noncitizens remain applicants for admission, they are still seeking admission. Judge Gonzales acknowledged that ruling but noted the Tenth Circuit has not yet addressed the question, and sided with the overwhelming majority of district courts that have considered the issue. A Southern District of New York decision cited in the opinion collected 362 district-court opinions nationwide and noted that challengers prevailed in at least 350 of them, decided by over 160 judges across fifty courts.
On the due process analysis, the court applied the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test and held that Demetgul's private interest in remaining free from detention is substantial, the risk of erroneous deprivation is significant given the absence of any changed-circumstances review before his redetention, and the government's interest in detaining him without a hearing is limited because the administrative cost of a bond determination is not terribly burdensome — a characterization the court borrowed from a prior District of New Mexico decision.
The remedy goes further than simply ordering a hearing. Because Demetgul's detention violated his constitutional rights, the court held that the burden shifts from the noncitizen — who normally must show detention is unwarranted under § 1226 — to the government, which must now justify continued detention by clear and convincing evidence. The court ordered the bond hearing to occur within seven days of the order, with release required if the government fails to meet that deadline, and directed the government to file a status report within ten days confirming compliance.