Luis Fabrico Quintana Gomez, a Venezuelan national currently detained at the Calhoun County Correctional Facility in Battle Creek, Michigan, challenged his immigration detention after ICE arrested him in December 2025 while he was working as a delivery driver in Grand Rapids. Quintana Gomez had previously been granted Temporary Protected Status from February 2024 to April 2025 and has a pending asylum application filed in October 2023. ICE charged him with inadmissibility for entering the U.S. without proper documentation despite his prior humanitarian parole.
Judge Maloney rejected the government's argument that Quintana Gomez was subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2), instead finding that § 1226(a) governs noncitizens who were already residing in the United States when apprehended. The judge concluded that Quintana Gomez's detention under the mandatory framework 'violates Petitioner's Fifth Amendment due process rights,' citing his analysis from several similar recent cases from his court involving Venezuelan nationals.
The case follows the controversial termination of Venezuela's Temporary Protected Status designation by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in early 2025, which is currently being challenged in federal court. The Ninth Circuit ruled in January 2026 that Noem exceeded her statutory authority in revoking TPS protections for Venezuelans, though the Supreme Court allowed the termination to remain in effect pending appeal. Judge Maloney noted that this ongoing litigation did not affect his analysis of the habeas petition.
ICE must now provide Quintana Gomez with a bond hearing under § 1226(a) within five business days or immediately release him from custody. The court also ordered the government to file a status report within six business days certifying compliance and detailing the outcome of any bond hearing. The ruling represents part of a pattern of similar decisions by Judge Maloney involving Venezuelan asylum seekers challenging their detention following the TPS termination.