Navneet Singh, a citizen of India, entered the United States without inspection on July 17, 2024, according to his petition. He then applied for asylum and withholding of removal, obtained employment authorization, and, as alleged in the petition, consistently appeared at mandated ICE check-ins and timely updated his contact information with the agency. On November 13, 2025, ICE arrested him, without any apparent cause, at a scheduled appointment in New York. He was transferred to the Otero County Processing Center in Chapparal, New Mexico, where he filed a pro se habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241.
The central legal question was which detention statute governed: the mandatory-detention provision of 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2), which applies to noncitizens seeking admission and bars release on bond, or § 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 Singh had resided in the United States since 2024 and was arrested in the interior — not at a port of entry or immediately upon crossing — § 1226(a) controlled.
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 ruling would control the outcome if the court followed it. The court did. Judge Davenport also held that Singh's continued detention violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights. The court noted that the government had offered neither a justification nor a formal process for the deprivation of his protected liberty interest, and that ICE had effectively penalized the very compliance the agency required of him.
The order directs respondents to release Singh within 72 hours, provide identity and travel documents sufficient for him to return to his primary address and board a domestic flight to New York, and file a notice of compliance within two business days. Respondents are also barred from re-detaining Singh without a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral immigration judge under § 1226(a), and from removing him to any third country without constitutionally compliant procedures. The court cited a consistent line of district court decisions from New Mexico, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Florida, Illinois, and New York reaching the same statutory conclusion.
The ruling is case No. 2:26-cv-00507 in the District of New Mexico.