Mauricio J. Rizo Gomez entered the United States on August 31, 2023, and was released by Customs and Border Protection under Nicaraguan Humanitarian Parole. He was apprehended on May 29, 2025, in St. Paul, Minnesota, and transferred to the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico, where he remained in ICE custody while in removal proceedings. He filed a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 seeking immediate release. According to the petition, Rizo Gomez holds a Social Security number and an Employment Authorization Document issued by DHS that is valid for an additional five years — facts the court accepted as the basis for its due process analysis.
The central statutory question was whether Rizo Gomez's detention was governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b), which applies to noncitizens seeking admission and carries no bond-hearing right, or by § 1226(a), the default rule for noncitizens already present in the United States, which entitles detainees to individualized bond hearings. U.S. District Judge Sarah M. Davenport held that because Rizo Gomez was arrested in the U.S. interior — not at a port of entry or immediately after crossing — § 1226(a) governs, and the two provisions are mutually exclusive.
On the constitutional question, the court held that Rizo Gomez possesses a protected liberty interest in remaining free from detention and was deprived of that interest without constitutionally adequate process. The court recognized that while neither his prior humanitarian parole nor his employment authorization constitutes legal authorization to remain in the country, any revocation of the protected interests arising from those circumstances must still comport with procedural due process. The government offered neither a justification nor a formal process for the deprivation.
The government conceded that the material facts were similar to those in Martin Ramirez v. Noem, a prior District of New Mexico decision, and acknowledged that case controls the outcome if the court adhered to that precedent. The court did. It also cited a line of district court decisions from New Mexico, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Florida, and Minnesota applying the same § 1225 versus § 1226 framework to interior-arrest detainees.
The order requires respondents — listed in the caption as Todd Blanche, Acting Attorney General, et al. — to release Rizo Gomez within 24 hours of the next business day, provide all identity and travel documents needed for him to return to Minnesota, and file a notice of compliance within two business days. The order further bars respondents from re-detaining Rizo Gomez without a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral immigration judge under § 1226(a), and from removing him to any third country for which he has no removal order without first providing constitutionally compliant procedures.