Dennis Zeledon Hernandez, a Salvadoran national, was ordered removed in absentia by an immigration judge in December 2019 after he failed to appear for a hearing. The removal warrant was not issued until May 2023, when Virginia police arrested him on a DUI-related offense. Transferred to ICE's Caroline Detention Facility, Zeledon retained an immigration attorney who filed a motion to reopen his case; an immigration judge denied that motion on June 13, 2023. With deportation scheduled for July 12, 2023, Zeledon escaped the facility on July 2, ran into the woods nearby, and was apprehended five days later by U.S. Marshals in North Carolina.
Federal prosecutors initially charged Zeledon in a criminal complaint with escape under 18 U.S.C. § 751(a) and with preventing his departure from the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1253(a)(1)(C). A grand jury indicted him on two counts: escape under § 751(a), and corruptly obstructing a pending proceeding when he escaped ICE custody to prevent, evade, or hamper DHS's and ICE's compliance with an order of removal issued by EOIR, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1505. The government did not pursue the § 1253 charge at indictment for reasons the opinion describes as unclear from the record. After a bench trial, the district court — presided over by Judge Roderick Charles Young of the Eastern District of Virginia — acquitted Zeledon on the § 751(a) escape count but convicted him on the § 1505 count and sentenced him to 18 months imprisonment.
The Fourth Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Gregory joined by Judge Quattlebaum, reversed. The court held that the plain text of § 1505 — which covers a "pending proceeding . . . being had before" a department or agency — does not reach ICE's enforcement of a removal order already issued by EOIR. The court reasoned that EOIR's proceeding concluded when it entered the final removal order, as the Immigration and Nationality Act specifies that an order of removal is issued at the conclusion of the removal proceeding and becomes final immediately upon entry. Because the immigration court's adjudicative role had ended, there was no proceeding "pending" before EOIR at the time of Zeledon's escape.
The court also rejected the government's alternative argument that ICE's warrant execution was itself a pending proceeding before ICE. Drawing on a long-established exception recognized by the Eighth, D.C., Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, the court held that § 1505 does not extend to "mere police" activity. The court analogized ICE's role to that of a police officer executing a magistrate's warrant, noting that ICE lacks rulemaking or adjudicative power with respect to noncitizens and was enforcing a judgment it did not have the power to enter. The court distinguished cases from the Seventh and Ninth Circuits — United States v. Senffner and United States v. Hopper — on the ground that in those cases the enforcing agency was the same agency that had investigated the underlying violations, whereas here ICE was executing a judgment issued by a separate entity, EOIR.
The court also pointed to the broader statutory structure: Congress had already enacted 8 U.S.C. § 1253, which criminalizes preventing or hampering the departure of an alien against whom a final order of removal is outstanding, and the government conceded at argument that Zeledon could have been properly charged under that provision.
Judge Wilkinson dissented, arguing that the ordinary meaning of "proceeding" encompasses a continuum of agency actions — investigation, adjudication, and enforcement alike — and that every other circuit that has spoken on the matter has read § 1505 broadly. He contended that ICE's involvement was intertwined with the immigration court proceeding from the issuance of the Notice to Appear through execution of the removal order, and that the majority departed in substance from sister-circuit precedent without acknowledging the circuit split it created. The case is No. 24-4665.