Janeth Munoz-Munoz, a 27-year-old Mexican national who has been present in the United States since November 2023, was detained on March 20, 2026, when she appeared for a scheduled Enforcement and Removal Operations check-in. Rather than releasing her as before, ICE transferred her to Grayson County Jail in the Western District of Kentucky. The legal trigger was a July 8, 2025, DHS interim guidance document titled "Interim Guidance Regarding Detention Authority for Applicants for Admission," which ICE relied on to classify Munoz-Munoz — and similarly situated noncitizens who entered without inspection but were released into the interior — as subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225 rather than the more flexible § 1226. The petitioner characterized the guidance as a reversal of longstanding policy.
Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings of the Western District of Kentucky held that § 1226, not § 1225(b)(2), governs Munoz-Munoz's detention. The court pointed to the fact that her Notice to Appear did not mark her as an "arriving alien," and that her arrest warrant was issued under authority arising from § 1226. The court incorporated its prior reasoning from Edahi v. Lewis and Vicen v. Lewis, two earlier Western District of Kentucky decisions reaching the same conclusion.
Applying the three-part Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test, the court found that all three factors favored Munoz-Munoz. On the first factor, the court noted she was separated from four family members in Chicago and detained in a different state, making it difficult to participate in her community, work, and care for her family. On the second, the court observed that Munoz-Munoz had not received a merits bond hearing, that the government had not shown she was a flight risk or danger to the community, and that the only material change in her circumstances was the government's reinterpretation of the two statutory provisions. On the third, the court found that a routine bond hearing before an immigration judge imposes minimal burdens on the government and that existing statutory and regulatory safeguards adequately serve the governmental interest in public safety.
The government's response largely declined to engage with the due process merits, instead incorporating by reference briefs filed in four pending Sixth Circuit appeals — Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft, Alvarez v. Noem, Contreras-Cervantes v. Raycraft, and Pizarro Reyes v. Raycraft — and conceding that the only relevant legal question was which statutory provision applied.
The court ordered the United States to release Munoz-Munoz immediately and to provide her with a bond hearing before a neutral immigration judge pursuant to § 1226. The court was explicit that the release was ordered because of the government's unlawful detention in violation of her due process rights, not merely because § 1226 applies, and that any re-detention requires a prior bond hearing on the merits before a neutral immigration judge. The government was required to certify compliance by filing on the docket by April 18, 2026.