Samuel Eliseo Diaz-Murica, an El Salvadorian national who entered the United States in July 2021 as an unaccompanied fifteen-year-old and was released to his aunt in Florida, has been held at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach since Border Patrol took him into custody during a traffic stop in October 2025. An immigration judge denied his bond motion in January 2026, concluding the court lacked jurisdiction over the request. Diaz-Murica filed a habeas petition in February 2026 challenging his detention without an individualized bond determination.
The government argued that Diaz-Murica is detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2), which mandates detention for applicants for admission and forecloses bond eligibility. That position tracks a July 8, 2025 DHS directive instructing ICE employees to treat any noncitizen not formally admitted or paroled as an applicant for admission subject to § 1225(b)(2), and a subsequent BIA decision, Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I&N Dec. 216 (BIA 2025), applying that framework to a noncitizen who had lived in the United States for years.
Judge Darrin P. Gayles rejected that interpretation, holding that the plain reading of the statute places Diaz-Murica under § 1226(a), the discretionary detention provision that entitles noncitizens already present in the country to bond hearings. The court ordered respondents to afford Diaz-Murica an individualized bond hearing on or before April 13, 2026, or release him.
The opinion notes that district courts have overwhelmingly rejected the BIA's interpretation, citing decisions from courts in the First, Second, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits as contrary to the government's reading. The court acknowledged a contrary Fifth Circuit panel decision, Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, 166 F.4th 494 (5th Cir. 2026), which sided with the government, but quoted the dissent in that case — which characterized the majority as distorting the statutory text and ignoring the Supreme Court's understanding of the statutory scheme — and noted that the decision is not binding and contradicts the vast majority of district court opinions addressing the issue.
The court also rejected the government's exhaustion argument, holding that because any bond appeal to the BIA would be nearly a foregone conclusion under Yajure Hurtado, prudential exhaustion requirements are excused for futility. Counts I and III of the petition — the substantive due process claim and the statutory claim that the government lacked authority to detain under the INA — were dismissed without prejudice, with the court noting Diaz-Murica may reassert them if respondents fail to provide a bond hearing.