Chief U.S. District Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales granted the habeas petition of Marbised Moreno Contreras, a Venezuelan citizen who entered the United States on or about August 20, 2023, lives in Illinois, and has been held at the Otero County Processing Center since DHS arrested her on December 15, 2025. She sought either immediate release or a prompt bond hearing, arguing that the government's failure to provide one violated both her statutory rights and her due process protections.
The central legal dispute was which detention statute governs her confinement. The government's position would have placed her under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), which mandates detention with no bond hearing for noncitizens seeking admission. Judge Gonzales rejected that framing, holding instead that § 1226 — which entitles noncitizens to individualized bond hearings — controls, because Moreno Contreras entered the country and lived here before ICE arrested her, meaning she was not seeking admission at the time of detention.
The ruling aligns with what the court described as the overwhelming majority of district courts to have considered the issue. The opinion cited a Southern District of New York decision collecting 362 district-court opinions nationwide and noting that challengers prevailed in at least 350 of them, in decisions by over 160 judges across fifty courts. The Tenth Circuit has not yet addressed the question, and Judge Gonzales acknowledged a recent Fifth Circuit decision reaching the opposite conclusion.
On the due process analysis, the court applied the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing framework and held that all three factors favor Moreno Contreras. Her private interest in remaining free from detention is substantial, the risk of erroneous deprivation is significant because no assessment was made of whether circumstances had changed since her prior release, and the administrative burden of providing a bond hearing is minimal.
The remedy goes further than simply ordering a hearing. Because Moreno Contreras was unlawfully detained in violation of her constitutional rights, Judge Gonzales held that the burden at the bond hearing shifts to the government, which must prove by clear and convincing evidence that she is a flight risk or danger to the community — the inverse of the normal § 1226 posture, where the noncitizen bears the burden.
The court ordered the government to provide the bond hearing before an immigration judge within seven days of the March 4, 2026 order, with release required if it fails to do so, and a status report due within ten days confirming that it has provided the bond hearing or released her.