Marie Anne Souffrance, a 35-year-old Haitian national who has lived in the United States since March 2023, was taken into ICE custody in March 2026 following a domestic dispute in Indiana. Local police arrested both Souffrance and her partner; within days, ICE transferred her to Grayson County Jail in the Western District of Kentucky. She has a pending asylum application, three minor children — two of whom are U.S. citizens — and, according to her petition, no criminal convictions.
The legal fight turns on a July 8, 2025 DHS interim guidance document titled "Interim Guidance Regarding Detention Authority for Applicants for Admission." Under that guidance, ICE treats noncitizens who entered without inspection — and who have not been formally admitted — as applicants for admission subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225, rather than as persons eligible for discretionary release under § 1226. Souffrance's petition described this as a reversal of longstanding policy.
Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, sitting in the Western District of Kentucky, rejected that framework. Incorporating her prior reasoning from Edahi v. Lewis and Vicen v. Lewis, she held that § 1226, not § 1225(b)(2), governs Souffrance's detention. The court pointed to the Notice to Appear itself — which did not mark Souffrance as an "arriving alien" — and to the I-200 arrest warrant, whose authority arises from § 1226, as evidence that the government's own paperwork contradicted its legal position. The United States, for its part, largely declined to engage with the merits, instead incorporating by reference briefs it had filed in four pending Sixth Circuit appeals raising the same § 1225 versus § 1226 question: Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft, Alvarez v. Noem, Contreras-Cervantes v. Raycraft, and Pizarro Reyes v. Raycraft.
Having resolved the statutory question, the court applied the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test to Souffrance's due process claim. All three factors favored her. The court noted her significant private liberty interest, her separation from three minor children while detained out of state, and the absence of any individualized assessment or bond hearing. On the government's side, the court held that a routine bond hearing before an immigration judge presents minimal burden to the United States and that existing statutory and regulatory safeguards already serve the government's public-safety interest.
The court ordered Souffrance's immediate release, directed the government to provide her a bond hearing before a neutral immigration judge pursuant to § 1226 and its supporting regulations, and required the United States to certify compliance by filing on the docket by April 15, 2026. The court was explicit that the release flows from the unlawful detention itself, not merely from the fact that § 1226 applies — and that any re-detention requires a merits bond hearing with counsel and evidence first.