Karla Yaritzi Bibriesca Esteban, a 22-year-old Mexican citizen who received a CBP mobile application appointment on June 9, 2023, at the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry in El Paso, Texas, and was subsequently paroled into the country, had been held at Grayson County Jail in Kentucky since June 5, 2025. She was detained at a Chicago immigration court hearing; the Immigration Judge granted the government's request, and the Board of Immigration Appeals later reversed that decision. Esteban remained in ICE custody while awaiting a new hearing — separated from her U.S. citizen husband in Chicago and still in standard removal proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a.
The central dispute tracks a DHS interim guidance issued July 8, 2025, titled "Interim Guidance Regarding Detention Authority for Applicants for Admission," under which ICE classified Esteban as subject to mandatory detention under Section 1225 rather than Section 1226. The government's position is that only noncitizens who have already been admitted are eligible for release during removal proceedings; everyone else, it argues, is an applicant for admission subject to Section 1225's mandatory-detention regime.
Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, writing for the Western District of Kentucky, rejected that position. Relying on her court's prior decisions in Vicen v. Lewis and Patel v. Tindall, she held that an individual paroled into the United States without first being placed in expedited removal cannot later be designated for expedited removal, and that Section 1226 — not Section 1225 — governs Esteban's detention. The government acknowledged that the only relevant legal question was which statute applied, and that the facts here are similar to those in four pending Sixth Circuit appeals: Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft, Alvarez v. Noem, Contreras-Cervantes v. Raycraft, and Pizarro Reyes v. Raycraft.
Applying the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test to Esteban's due process claim, the court held that all three factors favored her. Her private liberty interest is substantial; she has never missed an immigration check-in and was detained at a court appearance, giving the government little basis to establish she is a flight risk or danger to the community; and a routine bond hearing before an immigration judge imposes only minimal administrative burden on the government, using procedures already in place.
The court ordered Esteban's immediate release, directed the government to provide her a bond hearing before a neutral immigration judge under Section 1226 and its supporting regulations, and required the government to certify compliance by April 18, 2026. The court was explicit that the release flows from the unlawful detention itself, not merely from the fact that Section 1226 applies.
The ruling is part of a pattern of Western District of Kentucky habeas decisions on the Section 1225 versus Section 1226 question, with the underlying circuit-level dispute now pending before the Sixth Circuit in four appeals.