Ali Mamoud entered the United States without inspection in March 2023, encountered immigration officials near Luis, Arizona, and was transferred to Yuma, Arizona for further processing. He was then released into the interior with check-in conditions and a Notice to Appear. He settled in Columbus, Ohio, and filed an asylum application on March 18, 2024. On January 6, 2026, he showed up to a routine ICE check-in appointment and was arrested on the spot, then transferred to Hopkins County Jail in the Western District of Kentucky, where he has remained.
The legal fight turns on a July 8, 2025 DHS interim guidance titled "Interim Guidance Regarding Detention Authority for Applicants for Admission," which ICE used to reclassify noncitizens like Mamoud — who entered without inspection and were later released into the interior — as subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225 rather than the more protective § 1226. Under § 1225, detainees are not entitled to individualized bond hearings. Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, of the Western District of Kentucky, held that § 1226 governs Mamoud's detention, incorporating her prior reasoning from Edahi v. Lewis and Vicen v. Lewis, two earlier decisions in the same court reaching the same conclusion.
Having resolved the statutory question, Judge Jennings applied the three-part balancing test from Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), to Mamoud's due process claim. On the first factor, she held that Mamoud's private interest in liberty was substantial, noting his separation from his Columbus community due to detention in a separate state. On the second, she held the risk of erroneous deprivation was high — Mamoud had no criminal convictions or charges, had never received an individualized bond hearing, and the only material change in his circumstances was the government's reinterpretation of the detention statutes. On the third, she held that a routine bond hearing before an immigration judge imposes minimal burden on the government and that existing statutory and regulatory safeguards already serve the government's public-safety interest. All three factors favored Mamoud.
The government's response brief did not address the merits of the due process claim, instead relying on and incorporating by reference briefs it filed in four pending Sixth Circuit appeals — Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft, Alvarez v. Noem, Contreras-Cervantes v. Raycraft, and Pizarro Reyes v. Raycraft — and conceding that the only relevant legal question is whether § 1225 or § 1226 governs.
Judge Jennings ordered Mamoud's immediate release and directed the government to provide him a bond hearing before a neutral immigration judge before any re-detention, pursuant to 8 C.F.R. §§ 1236.1(c)(8) and (d)(1). The government was required to certify compliance by filing on the docket by April 18, 2026. The court was explicit that the release flows from the unlawful detention itself, not merely from the fact that § 1226 applies.
The ruling is the third in a series from Judge Jennings on the § 1225 versus § 1226 question, and the four Sixth Circuit appeals the government cited signal that the circuit will eventually resolve the issue for the entire region.