Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_07-cv-06391/USCOURTS-cand-4_07-cv-06391-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Michael Chertoff
Respondent
Emilio T. Gonzales
Respondent
Raghuvinder Kumar
Petitioner
Michael Mukasey
Respondent

Document Text:

United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

RAGHUVINDER KUMAR,

Petitioner,

 v.

EMILIO T. GONZALES, SF District

Director; MICHAEL CHERTOFF, as

Secretary of the Department of

Homeland Security; MICHAEL MUKASEY,

Attorney General of the United

States,

Respondents. /

No. C 07-6391 CW

ORDER DENYING

PETITION FOR WRIT OF

HABEAS CORPUS

Petitioner Raghuvinder Kumar brings this action seeking a writ

of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, claiming that his

detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

violates the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and is

unconstitutional. Respondents Emilio T. Gonzales, Michael Chertoff

and Michael Mukasey oppose the petition. The matter was taken

under submission on the papers. Having considered all of the

papers submitted by the parties, the Court denies the petition.

BACKGROUND

Petitioner is an Indian national. He entered the United

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States in 2000 and applied for asylum thereafter. An immigration

judge denied his application in 2006 and he was ordered removed to

India. Petitioner appealed this decision to the Bureau of

Immigration Appeals (BIA). He was subsequently convicted of a

misdemeanor under state law and was incarcerated in the Santa Clara

County Jail. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

learned of Petitioner’s incarceration and determined that he should

be taken into custody upon his release from jail, pending a

decision on his appeal to the BIA.

On or about May 9, 2007, ICE served Petitioner with a notice

of custody determination and took him into custody. On June 18,

2007, the BIA dismissed Petitioner’s appeal. ICE issued a warrant

of removal that same day. On June 22, 2007, Petitioner filed a

petition with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seeking review of

the BIA’s decision and a stay of removal. The court issued a stay

of removal; the petition for review is still pending.

On September 12, 2007, ICE notified Petitioner that it would

continue to detain him because it was in possession of a valid

travel document for him, which made his actual removal possible,

and because his removal had been delayed solely due to the stay he

had obtained from the Ninth Circuit. On December 17, 2007,

Petitioner filed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus with this

Court. He claims that his detention is not authorized by the INA

and is unconstitutional.

Subsequent to filing his habeas petition, on January 15, 2008,

Petitioner moved the Ninth Circuit for an extension of time to file

his opening brief in the review proceeding. This motion was

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granted. On March 7, 2008, Petitioner filed a second motion for an

extension of time to file his opening brief. This motion was also

granted. In the first motion, Petitioner represented to the Ninth

Circuit that he was “not in the custody of the Department of

Homeland Security at the present time.” Return Ex. 11 at 3. In

the second motion, Petitioner represented that he was “not

detained.” Id. Ex. 12 at 2. Petitioner has not sought to explain

the apparent contradiction between these statements and the

asserted factual basis for his habeas petition.

DISCUSSION

Petitioner’s detention is governed by one of two possible

sections of the INA: 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), which governs

“Apprehension and detention of aliens” until they are ordered

removed, and 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a), which governs “Detention, release,

and removal of aliens ordered removed.” It is not clear which

statute applies to the detention at issue here.

Section 1226(a) provides that “an alien may be arrested and

detained pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed

from the United States.” Section 1231(a), in contrast, applies

only to aliens who have already been ordered removed. It

establishes a “removal period” that lasts for ninety days, during

which time “the Attorney General shall remove the alien.” 

§ 1231(a)(1)(A). It also provides, “During the removal period, the

Attorney General shall detain the alien.” § 1231(a)(2). The

removal period begins on the latest of the following:

(i) The date the order of removal becomes

administratively final.

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1As Respondents note, the section of the INA that governs

judicial review of removal orders states that nothing therein

“prevent[s] the Attorney General, after a final order of removal

has been issued, from detaining the alien under section 1231(a) of

this title.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(8)(A). This strongly suggests

that Congress intended detention during judicial review to be

governed by section 1231(a), not section 1226(a).

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(ii) If the removal order is judicially reviewed and if a

court orders a stay of the removal of the alien, the date

of the court’s final order.

(iii) If the alien is detained or confined (except under

an immigration process), the date the alien is released

from detention or confinement.

§ 1231(a)(1)(B).

Because Petitioner has petitioned the Ninth Circuit for a

review of his final order of removal, and because that court has

not yet issued a final order on review, Petitioner’s removal period

has not yet begun. Thus, his detention is not compelled by the

plain language of section 1231(a)(2), which on its face only

applies to detention during the removal period.1 At the same time,

“a decision on whether [Petitioner] is to be removed from the

United States” is no longer “pending,” § 1226(a), unless the

“decision” to which the statute refers is interpreted to be the

Ninth Circuit’s pending decision on Petitioner’s petition for

review of the BIA decision. Thus, section 1226(a) does not appear

to apply to Petitioner’s situation, either.

The Ninth Circuit apparently has not addressed whether an

individual’s detention pending judicial review of a final

administrative order of removal is governed by section 1226(a) or

section 1231(a). The Court need not determine which section

applies, however, because the issue is not dispositive to the

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2

Petitioner’s argument is expressed in terms of due process. 

However, as explained below, this reflects an incorrect

characterization of Zadvydas.

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outcome of this action. Although Petitioner vaguely claims that

his detention “violates the INA,” Pet. at 2, he has not cited any

provision of the Act, and has not refuted Respondents’ argument

that his detention is within the ambit of either section 1226(a) or

section 1231(a). Nor has Petitioner cited any case in which a

court has held that detention during the period of judicial review

is not authorized under the INA at all. Indeed, it would defy

reason to conclude that Congress intended to authorize an alien’s

detention up to the point at which a final order of removal is

issued against him and then again once his removal period has

begun, but not in the interim as he pursues judicial review of the

order of removal. Therefore, because Petitioner’s detention falls

under the purview of either section 1226(a) or section 1231(a), it

does not “violate the INA” in this respect.

A different question is whether the length of Petitioner’s

detention is authorized under the INA. By citing Zadvydas v.

Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), Petitioner implicitly argues that his

removal is not reasonably foreseeable, and therefore his detention

is not authorized.2 In Zadvydas, the Supreme Court addressed, as a

matter of statutory interpretation, the meaning of 8 U.S.C.

§ 1231(a)(6), which provides that certain aliens “may be detained

beyond the removal period” of ninety days established in section

1231(a)(1)(A). The issue was whether the statute permits the

indefinite detention of aliens who are subject to a final order of

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removal but cannot be removed because no country will accept them.

The Court reasoned that, because “[a] statute permitting

indefinite detention of an alien would raise a serious

constitutional problem,” the statute should not be interpreted so

as to authorize indefinite detention in the absence of a clear

statement by Congress. Id. at 690, 696-97. Thus, the Court

construed § 1321(a)(6) to authorize only detention that was

“reasonably necessary to bring about [an] alien’s removal from the

United States.” Id. at 689. The Court stated that six months

should be considered a “presumptively reasonable period of

detention” under this standard.

After this 6-month period, once the alien provides good

reason to believe that there is no significant likelihood

of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, the

Government must respond with evidence sufficient to rebut

that showing. And for detention to remain reasonable, as

the period of prior postremoval confinement grows, what

counts as the “reasonably foreseeable future” conversely

would have to shrink. This 6-month presumption, of

course, does not mean that every alien not removed must

be released after six months. To the contrary, an alien

may be held in confinement until it has been determined

that there is no significant likelihood of removal in the

reasonably foreseeable future.

Id. at 701.

Because Petitioner is not being held past his ninety-day

removal period, Zadvydas does not directly apply to his situation. 

However, in Nadarajah v. Gonzales, 443 F.3d 1069, 1076-77 (9th Cir.

2006), the Ninth Circuit held that, based on the rationale

underlying the Zadvydas decision, the “general immigration

detention statutes,” such as those pursuant to which Petitioner is

being held, also do not authorize indefinite detention:

Rather, consistent with the Supreme Court’s approach in

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3The Court notes that three months of the time Petitioner has

spent in detention is attributable to his two requests for

extensions of time to file his opening brief in the Ninth Circuit

proceedings.

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Zadvydas, we conclude that the statutes at issue permit

detention only while removal remains reasonably

foreseeable. Further, consistent with Zadvydas, we

conclude that after a presumptively reasonable six-month

detention, “once the alien provides good reason to

believe that there is no significant likelihood of

removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, the

Government must respond with evidence sufficient to rebut

that showing.”

Id. at 1078 (quoting Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 701).

Petitioner’s assertion that “[t]he immigration statute that

governs his detention authorizes [ICE] to detain aliens for a

maximum period of six months after the final order of deportation

becomes executable,” Pet. ¶ 1, mischaracterizes the law. Six

months is merely the period of time during which the government’s

detention of an alien will be presumed to be reasonable. Zadvydas

and its progeny still “place[] the burden on the alien to show,

after a detention period of six months, that there is ‘good reason

to believe that there is no significant likelihood of removal in

the reasonably foreseeable future.’” Pelich v. INS, 329 F.3d 1057,

1059 (9th Cir. 2003) (quoting Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 710).

Although Petitioner has been in ICE custody for nearly a

year,3 longer than the presumptively reasonable period, he has

failed to show that there is no significant likelihood of his

removal in the reasonably foreseeable future. To the contrary, it

is very likely that Petitioner will be removed (or else he will be

released) once the Ninth Circuit rules on his petition for judicial

review; ICE is in possession of valid travel documents for

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4In addition, although the Zadvydas Court found that “[a]

statute permitting indefinite detention of an alien would raise a

serious constitutional problem,” 533 U.S. 690, it also found that

“[d]espite this constitutional problem, if Congress has made its

intent in the statute clear, we must give effect to that intent,”

(continued...)

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Petitioner and would have removed him already had it not been for

the stay of removal Petitioner obtained from the court of appeals. 

In addition, the delay in Petitioner’s removal is of his own

making. While Petitioner is entitled to seek judicial review of

the BIA’s decision to deny him asylum and should not be penalized

for exercising his rights, he cannot simultaneously take steps to

prevent his removal while seeking a writ of habeas corpus on the

basis that he has not yet been removed. See Pelich, 329 F.3d at

360 (“[T]he detainee cannot convincingly argue that there is no

significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable

future if the detainee controls the clock.”).

Petitioner argues generally that his detention violates both

substantive and procedural due process. His substantive due

process argument, however, appears to misread Zadvydas as holding

that any detention exceeding six months violates the detainee’s

substantive due process rights. But Zadvydas dealt with an issue

of statutory interpretation. Its rule that the INA authorizes only

a period of detention that is reasonably necessary to effect the

detainee’s removal was crafted in order to avoid the substantive

due process concerns that would be presented if the Act authorized

indefinite detention. It follows that if Respondents’ actions are

lawful under the Zadvydas standard, they do not violate

Petitioner’s due process rights.4

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4

(...continued)

id. at 696. Thus, it is not clear that a substantive due process

argument would be available to Petitioner in any event.

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As for Petitioner’s assertion that his right to procedural due

process has been violated, he has not stated a factual basis for

this claim. He states only that he “was placed under detention

even before the Board issued a decision” on his asylum application,

and that a “custody review was undertaken on or about September 16,

2007.” Pet. ¶ 10. While he argues that procedural due process

“requires a custody hearing before an independent and impartial

adjudicator, not just an ICE employee,” he has not alleged any

procedural irregularities or deficiencies in connection with the

decision to detain him. Thus, he has not demonstrated that habeas

relief is warranted on this basis.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for a writ of habeas

corpus is DENIED. If, at some future time, it appears that there

is no significant likelihood of Petitioner’s removal in the

reasonably foreseeable future, he may file another habeas petition

at that time.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 5/6/08 

CLAUDIA WILKEN

United States District Judge

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