Erick Cervantes Merino came to the United States from Mexico in 2014 at age six and was attending Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids when ICE detained him on November 18, 2025. The arrest followed a traffic stop two days earlier in which he told officers his last name was Sosa, which he said is a name he is known by; he pleaded guilty to providing false information to a police officer and was ordered to pay a fine. While he was released from criminal custody on his own recognizance, an ICE hold kept him in custody. DHS issued a Notice to Appear the same day ICE processed him, charging removability under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) and (a)(7)(A)(i)(I). He has been held at the Hardin County Jail in Eldora, Iowa, ever since.
Cervantes Merino filed a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 arguing that the mandatory detention provision of 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2) does not apply to someone who had already entered and was residing in the country, and that even if it does, his continued detention without a bond hearing violates the Fifth Amendment. He asked for immediate release or, alternatively, an individualized bond hearing at which the Government would bear the burden of proving dangerousness and flight risk by clear and convincing evidence.
Judge Leonard T. Strand of the Northern District of Iowa denied the petition. Because Cervantes Merino acknowledged the applicability of the Eighth Circuit's decision in Avila v. Bondi — which found that similarly situated petitioners qualify under § 1225(b)(2) — the court treated that statute as governing his detention. The court noted that § 1225(b)(2) provides no statutory right to a bond hearing, and turned to the as-applied due process challenge.
Judge Strand rejected the Government's broadest position — that aliens detained under § 1225(b)(2) are entitled only to whatever process Congress has chosen to provide — citing the long-established principle from Yamataya v. Fisher that removal proceedings do not strip an alien of due process protections entirely. He also declined to apply the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing framework as the primary test, instead adopting what he described as a spectrum-of-protections approach keyed to an alien's status and circumstances, drawing on Zadvydas v. Davis and Landon v. Plasencia.
Applying that framework to the class of aliens held under § 1225(b)(2) who had previously entered and remained in the United States for a significant period, the court found no constitutional right to a bond hearing during the pendency of removal proceedings. The opinion analogized the result to Demore v. Kim and Banyee v. Garland, which upheld mandatory detention under § 1226(c) for criminal aliens, and cited Wong Wing v. United States and Jennings v. Rodriguez in support of the proposition that civil detention pending removal proceedings is constitutionally permissible. The court held that the constitutional procedure due to this class of aliens is the removal proceeding itself.
The court acknowledged the ruling's limits. Judge Strand noted in a footnote that the proper framework for evaluating such claims is not well-settled, and that if Mathews were determined to be the correct test, Cervantes Merino's individual circumstances would warrant a bond hearing. He also noted that Congress may not have intended § 1225(b)(2) to sweep in as many people as Avila now requires, but stated he is bound by that decision and must presume the statute means what it says. The ruling resolves only Cervantes Merino's individual petition and does not establish circuit-level precedent.