Maria Teresa Rodriguez Alfaro, a 42-year-old business owner with no criminal history who has lived in the United States since age nine, had her DACA status lapse after an error in her online renewal application. She was arrested on July 29, 2025, after driving her brother to a court hearing on a traffic violation. An immigration judge granted her cancellation of removal on November 8, 2025, noting the hardship she and her three children would face if she were removed, and later set bond at $1,500 — twice. Each time, DHS invoked the automatic stay provision at 8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(i)(2), keeping her detained at the Denver Contract Detention Facility while it appealed.
Judge Philip A. Brimmer of the District of Colorado granted Rodriguez Alfaro's habeas petition on April 7, 2026, ordering her release upon posting the $1,500 bond. The case is Civil Action No. 26-cv-01200-PAB.
The central legal dispute was whether the automatic stay regulation — which allows DHS to halt a bond release order simply by filing a one-page notice within one business day, without any showing of individualized facts or likelihood of success on appeal — satisfies due process. Respondents argued the applicable standard came from Trump v. J.G.G., 604 U.S. 670 (2025), which addressed removal under the Alien Enemies Act and stated that detainees are entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard appropriate to the nature of the case. Judge Brimmer rejected that framing and applied the three-factor balancing test from Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), noting that respondents' own cited authorities — including Landon v. Plasencia and Miranda v. Garland — themselves applied the Mathews framework to due process challenges involving noncitizen detention.
All three Mathews factors favored Rodriguez Alfaro. On the first, the court held that freedom from physical detention is, as the Supreme Court stated in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the most elemental of liberty interests, and that even a 90-day additional detention would be significant given she had already been held for over eight months without any criminal accusation. On the second, the court noted that the automatic stay by definition applies only to detainees who have already prevailed at a bond hearing, and that DHS need not demonstrate any individualized basis or likelihood of success to invoke it — a combination the court found creates a high risk of erroneous deprivation of liberty. On the third, the court held that the government's asserted flight-risk interest is undercut by the fact that the automatic stay applies only to individuals whom an immigration judge has already determined do not pose a public safety threat or flight risk sufficient to warrant continued confinement.
The ruling aligns the District of Colorado with a substantial body of authority. The court noted that at least 50 district court decisions across the United States have found that DHS's application of the automatic stay under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(i)(2) violates a noncitizen's due process under the Fifth Amendment, citing M.P.L. v. Arteta, 2025 WL 3288354 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 25, 2025). The court also relied on two prior District of Colorado decisions reaching the same conclusion: Merchan-Pacheo v. Noem, No. 25-cv-03860-SBP, 2026 WL 88526 (D. Colo. Jan. 12, 2026), and Rivas v. Baltazar, No. 26-cv-00442-SKC, 2026 WL 444732 (D. Colo. Feb. 17, 2026).
The parties were ordered to file a status report by April 13, 2026, advising whether bond was posted and whether Rodriguez Alfaro remained in custody.