Amrit Pal, an asylum seeker from India who arrived in the United States on or about May 26, 2022, was arrested by ICE on or about August 29, 2025, following an incident in which he had attended a social gathering, later fell ill with a high fever, was taken to a hospital by friends, and subsequently had contact with local authorities resulting in minor alcohol-related citations. ICE detained him under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b), the mandatory-detention provision that the government has been applying broadly to noncitizens it deems inadmissible. Pal filed an emergency habeas petition arguing that § 1225(b) does not govern his detention and that holding him without an individualized bond hearing violates the Fifth Amendment.
Senior U.S. District Judge William J. Martínez, sitting in the District of Colorado, agreed. The court held that § 1225(b)(2)(A) applies only to noncitizens who are actively seeking admission — a category that does not include people like Pal who were paroled into the country years ago and have been living here since. In its earlier published decision in Garcia Abanil v. Baltazar, the court had quoted outside authority for the proposition that noncitizens in that position are not seeking admission to the United States but are instead seeking to remain in the United States. The government itself acknowledged that the facts here were not materially distinguishable from the court's prior ruling in Morales Lopez v. Baltazar and that the court would likely reach the same result.
The ruling places the District of Colorado squarely in conflict with the Fifth and Eighth Circuits, which have adopted the government's reading of § 1225(b). The government cited those decisions — Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi from the Fifth Circuit and Avila v. Bondi from the Eighth Circuit — but conceded that until the Tenth Circuit rules, the court's prior decisions would control. The Tenth Circuit has not yet weighed in.
On remedy, the government argued that a bond hearing before an immigration judge was the appropriate relief. The court rejected that. The court noted that in a separate case before it, an immigration judge had issued a bond denial stating only that it had considered the totality of the circumstances, that DHS had met its burden to establish the respondent was both a danger and a flight risk, and that the respondent had not met his burden to establish he was neither a danger nor a significant flight risk — without citing any specific facts. Citing that example and similar findings from district courts in New Jersey, Nevada, California, and Ohio, the court concluded that ordering a bond hearing would, in the words of one of those courts it quoted, effectively allow the government to transform an unlawful detention into a lawful one through post-hoc justifications.
Judge Martínez ordered Pal released on his own recognizance by April 9, 2026, subject only to the conditions of his existing conditional parole. The order also enjoins the government from re-arresting Pal unless it first demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence at a pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral decisionmaker that he is a flight risk or danger to the community — with the burden on the government and Pal's right to counsel guaranteed. A separate injunction bars transferring Pal out of the District of Colorado pending further court order.