FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JOHN DOE, 

Petitioner-Appellee, 

 v. 

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney 

General; ALEJANDRO N. 

MAYORKAS; TAE JOHNSON, in his 

official capacity, Acting Director for 

U.S. Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement; POLLY KAISER, in her 

official capacity, Acting Director for 

the San Francisco ICE Field Office; 

MOISES BECERRA, 

Respondents-Appellants.

No.23-15361 

D.C. No.

3:22-cv-03759-JD 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

James Donato, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted May 16, 2024

San Francisco, California

Filed July 29, 2024
2 DOE V. GARLAND

Before: Kenneth K. Lee and Daniel A. Bress, Circuit 

Judges, and Yvette Kane,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Kane

SUMMARY**

Habeas/Immigration

The panel reversed the district court’s denial of 

Respondents’ motion to dismiss and remanded to the district 

court with instructions to vacate the grant of the habeas 

petition filed by John Doe, a detained alien. 

Doe brought his habeas petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2241 in the Northern District of California, contesting his 

detention at the Golden State Annex (“GSA”) and naming as 

Respondents Attorney General Merrick Garland and other 

federal officials. After the district court granted Doe’s 

petition, an immigration judge held a bond hearing, and Doe 

was released from custody. 

The panel held that the district court erred in exercising 

jurisdiction over Doe’s habeas petition because Doe failed 

to name his immediate custodian as respondent and filed the 

petition outside the district of his confinement. The panel 

explained that, under Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426 

* The Honorable Yvette Kane, United States District Judge for the 

Middle District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
DOE V. GARLAND 3

(2004), when a § 2241 habeas petitioner challenges his 

present physical confinement—which the Supreme Court 

labeled a core challenge—he should name his warden as 

respondent and file the petition in the district of confinement. 

Addressing the principal question of whether Padilla’s 

rules for core habeas petitions applied to Doe, the panel 

concluded that Doe’s petition was a core habeas petition. 

The panel explained that Doe sought typical habeas relief in 

asking for his release should Respondents fail to provide him 

with a bond hearing. 

Next, the panel concluded that Doe failed to name the 

proper respondent to his core habeas petition because he did 

not name his immediate custodian, the Facility 

Administrator (and de facto warden) of the GSA. The panel 

also concluded that Doe failed to file his petition in the 

proper judicial district because he was confined at the GSA 

in the Eastern District of California, but filed his petition in 

the Northern District of California.
4 DOE V. GARLAND

COUNSEL

Jordan Wells (argued), Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights 

of the San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco, California, 

for Petitioner-Appellee.

Shiwon Choe (argued) and Savith Iyengar, Assistant United 

States Attorneys; Michelle Lo, Civil Division Chief; Ismail 

J. Ramsey, United States Attorney; United States 

Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorney, 

San Francisco, California; Courtney E. Moran and Erin T. 

Ryan, Trial Attorneys; William C. Peachey, Director; Brian 

M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General; 

United States Department of Justice, Civil Division, Office 

of Immigration Litigation, Washington, D.C.; for 

Respondents-Appellants.

Marc Van Der Hout and Johnny Sinodis, Van Der Hout LLP, 

San Francisco, California; Trina A. Realmuto, Kristin 

Macleod-Ball, and Aidan Langston, National Immigration 

Litigation Alliance, Brookline, Massachusetts; for Amici 

Curiae The National Immigration Litigation Alliance, 

Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, Immigrant 

Legal Defense, and Asian Americans Advancing JusticeAsian Law Caucus.

Michelle (Minju) Y. Cho, and Bree Bernwanger, American 

Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California, 

San Francisco, California, for Amici Curiae American Civil 

Liberties Union of Northern California, American Civil 

Liberties Union of Southern California, The American 

Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, and Pangea Legal 

Services.
DOE V. GARLAND 5

OPINION

KANE, District Judge:

John Doe (“Doe”), an alien detained pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1226(c), brought a petition for writ of habeas corpus 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the Northern District of 

California. Doe contested his detention at the Golden State 

Annex (“GSA”), which is located in the Eastern District of 

California. Doe named Attorney General Merrick Garland, 

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejando 

Mayorkas, then Acting Director for United States 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) Tae 

Johnson, and then Acting Director for the San Francisco ICE 

Field Office Polly Kaiser, as Respondents (“Respondents”).1 

The district court denied Respondents’ motion to dismiss on 

jurisdictional grounds and granted Doe’s petition. However, 

because Doe did not name his immediate custodian, the 

Facility Administrator (and de facto warden) of GSA as the 

respondent, and because he filed his complaint outside of the 

judicial district where he was confined, we hold that the 

district court erroneously exercised jurisdiction over his 

petition. 

We therefore REVERSE the district court’s denial of 

Respondents’ motion to dismiss and REMAND this case to 

the district court with instructions to VACATE the grant of 

Doe’s petition for writ of habeas corpus. 

1 During the pendency of this appeal, Moises Becerra was appointed as 

Field Office Director for the ICE San Francisco Field Office, as 

successor to Acting Director Polly Kaiser. 
6 DOE V. GARLAND

I. Background

On July 12, 2021, Doe began his detention at GSA 

pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c), which requires that the 

Attorney General take civil custody of criminal aliens 

detained pending removal without requiring a showing that 

the detainees pose a danger to the public or are a flight risk. 

8 U.S.C. § 1226(c). Following a prolonged period during 

which he did not receive a bond hearing, on June 24, 2022, 

Doe filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United 

States District Court for the Northern District of California. 

He named as Respondents Merrick B. Garland, the Attorney 

General of the United States; Alejandro Mayorkas, the 

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; Tae 

Johnson, then Acting Director for United States Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement; and Polly Kaiser, then Acting 

Director for the San Francisco ICE Field Office, all in their 

official capacities. In his petition, Doe requested “that this 

Court issue a writ of habeas corpus and order his release 

within fourteen days unless Respondents schedule a hearing 

before an immigration judge.” Doe sought a bond hearing, 

requesting that the district court order Respondents to 

establish “by clear and convincing evidence” that he presents 

a flight risk or danger to the public, and, if Respondents 

could not meet their burden at said hearing, that an

immigration judge order his release “on appropriate 

conditions of supervision, taking into account his ability to 

pay a bond.” 

Respondents moved to dismiss Doe’s petition, 

challenging jurisdiction in the Northern District of 

California. The district court denied Respondents’ motion 

in a summary order, holding that “[t]he Court has concluded 

in prior immigration habeas cases that the Northern District 

of California is an appropriate jurisdiction for petitions filed 
DOE V. GARLAND 7

by aliens detained by the Director of the San Francisco ICE 

Field Office.” On the merits, the district court granted Doe’s 

petition, ordering the government to release Doe from 

custody or provide him an individualized bond hearing 

within thirty-one (31) days of the date of the court’s order. 

In accordance with the district court’s order, the government 

scheduled a bond hearing. At that hearing, the immigration 

judge issued a decision releasing Doe on $7,500 bond and 

Doe was released from ICE custody. Respondents appeal to 

this court the orders of the Northern District of California 

denying their motion to dismiss and granting Doe’s habeas 

petition. 

II. Standard of Review

This court has jurisdiction over the district court’s 

decision denying Respondents’ motion to dismiss and 

granting Doe’s habeas petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 

The court reviews jurisdictional questions de novo. United 

States v. Jeremiah, 493 F.3d 1042, 1044 (9th Cir. 2007); see 

also Nettles v. Grounds, 830 F.3d 922, 927 (9th Cir. 2016) 

(reviewing de novo a district court’s finding that it lacked 

jurisdiction over a habeas petition). 

III. Analysis

A. Rules Governing § 2241 Petitions 

Doe filed his habeas petition in the Northern District of 

California pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. The federal habeas 

statute, § 2241, provides in relevant part that: 

[w]rits of habeas corpus may be granted by 

the Supreme Court, any justice thereof, the 

district courts and any circuit judge within 

their respective jurisdictions. The order of a 
8 DOE V. GARLAND

circuit judge shall be entered in the records of 

the district court of the district wherein the 

restraint complained of is had.

28 U.S.C. § 2241(a). 

The seminal case interpreting and clarifying the 

jurisdictional bounds of § 2241 is the United States Supreme 

Court’s decision in Rumsfeld v. Padilla. In Padilla, 

petitioner Jose Padilla was detained by the United States 

Department of Defense following President George W. 

Bush’s determination that Padilla was an “enemy 

combatant” who conspired with Al-Qaeda to perpetuate 

terror attacks on the United States. See Rumsfeld v. Padilla,

542 U.S. 426, 430 (2004). Padilla was detained by federal 

agents at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and 

subsequently transported to New York after agents executed 

a material witness warrant issued by the United States 

District Court for the Southern District of New York. Id. at 

430–31. He moved to vacate the warrant, but while his 

motion was pending, President Bush ordered Secretary of 

Defense Rumsfeld to designate Padilla an enemy combatant 

and take him into military custody. Id. at 431. Padilla was 

taken into custody by officials of the United States 

Department of Defense and transferred to the Consolidated 

Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Id. at 432. His 

counsel then filed a petition for habeas corpus pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 2241 in the Southern District of New York, naming 

as respondents President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, and 

Commander of the Consolidated Naval Brig Melanie A. 

Marr. Id. 

In finding that the district court in the Southern District 

of New York did not have jurisdiction over Padilla’s 

petition, the Supreme Court highlighted several important 
DOE V. GARLAND 9

rules. First, the Court noted that in the federal habeas statute,

28 U.S.C. § 2242, “[t]he consistent use of the definite article 

in reference to the custodian indicates that there is generally 

only one proper respondent to a given prisoner’s habeas 

petition. This custodian, moreover, is ‘the person’ with the 

ability to produce the prisoner’s body before the habeas 

court.” Id. at 434–35. The Court next clarified that when a 

habeas petitioner challenges “present physical 

confinement,” which the Court labeled a “core challenge[],” 

“the default rule is that the proper respondent is the warden 

of the facility where the prisoner is being held, not the 

Attorney General or some other remote supervisory 

official.” Id. at 435.2 In addition to delineating the proper 

respondent for core habeas petitions, the Court also 

explained that “for core habeas petitions challenging present 

physical confinement, jurisdiction lies in only one district: 

the district of confinement.” Id. at 443. In short, and putting 

the rules together, “[w]henever a § 2241 habeas petitioner 

seeks to challenge his present physical custody within the 

United States, he should name his warden as respondent and 

file the petition in the district of confinement.” Id. at 447.

The Padilla district of confinement and immediate 

custodian rules are firmly entrenched in the law of this and 

other circuits. See Lopez-Marroquin v. Barr, 955 F.3d 759, 

760 (9th Cir. 2020) (applying the district of confinement rule 

to a § 2241 petition involving a noncitizen’s challenge to his 

immigration detention); see also Kholyavskiy v. Achim, 443 

F.3d 946, 948–54 (7th Cir. 2006) (applying the immediate 

2 When a habeas petitioner “challenges a form of ‘custody’ other than 

present physical confinement,” the respondent can be “the entity or 

person who exercises legal control with respect to the challenged 

‘custody.’” Id. at 438.
10 DOE V. GARLAND

custodian rule in rejecting the naming of the ICE Field 

Office Director as the proper respondent to a habeas 

petition); Anariba v. Dir. Hudson Cnty. Corr. Ctr., 17 F.4th 

434, 444–45 (3d Cir. 2021) (applying the district of 

confinement and immediate custodian rules to a core habeas 

petition challenging immigration detention).3 

These rules are the basis for Respondents’ challenge to 

jurisdiction in the Northern District of California. 

Respondents argued below that Doe should have named the 

warden of GSA, his immediate custodian, as respondent to 

his habeas petition. Respondents further argued that Doe 

filed his petition outside of the district where he was 

confined, thus rendering the Northern District of California’s 

exercise of jurisdiction improper. 

The district court denied Respondents’ motion, noting in 

its summary order that “[t]he Court has concluded in prior 

immigration habeas cases that the Northern District of 

California is an appropriate jurisdiction for petitions filed by 

aliens detained by the Director of the San Francisco ICE 

Field Office.” 4 On appeal, Respondents renew their 

3 Padilla denotes that compliance with the immediate custodian rule 

generally requires petitioners to name the warden as a proper respondent. 

See Padilla, 542 U.S. at 435. For ease of reference, we refer only to the 

immediate custodian rule, not the warden as respondent rule. 

4 The district judge cited two of his prior rulings, Meneses v. Jennings, 

No. 21-cv-07193, 2021 WL 4804293, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 14, 2021) 

and Ahn v. Barr, No. 20-cv-02604, 2020 WL 2113678, at *2 (N.D. Cal. 

May 4, 2020), in concluding that jurisdiction was proper in the Northern 

District of California. Later decisions from other district courts in the 

Northern District reveal an inconsistent approach to the jurisdictional 

question raised here. Compare Doe v. Becerra, No. 23-cv-04767, 2023 

WL 8307557 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 1, 2023) (exercising jurisdiction over a 

habeas petition from a GSA detainee), with Rivera-Trigueros v. Becerra, 
DOE V. GARLAND 11

argument that under Padilla, Doe’s failure to name his 

immediate custodian, the warden of GSA, as respondent to 

his habeas petition, as well as his failure to file his petition 

in the district of confinement, renders the district court’s 

exercise of jurisdiction improper. In response, Doe argues 

that his petition is a non-core habeas petition, but that even 

if the court finds that Doe’s petition is a core habeas petition, 

he named the proper respondent and filed his petition in the 

proper judicial district, because there is no statutorily 

required district of confinement rule. 

B. Doe’s Petition is a Core Habeas Petition 

In addressing the principal question of whether Padilla’s 

rules for core habeas petitions apply to Doe, we turn first to 

the language of Doe’s habeas petition, which requests:

that this Court issue a writ of habeas corpus 

and order his release within fourteen days 

unless Respondents schedule a hearing 

before an immigration judge where: (1) to 

continue detention, the government must 

establish by clear and convincing evidence 

that Mr. Doe presents a risk of flight or 

danger; and (2) if the government cannot 

meet its burden, the immigration judge orders 

Mr. Doe’s release on appropriate conditions 

No. 23-cv-05781, 2024 WL 1129880 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 14, 2024) 

(declining to exercise jurisdiction over a habeas petition from a GSA 

detainee), and Alfaro-Ramirez v. Current or Acting Field Off. Dir., San 

Francisco Field Off., No. 24-cv-00817, 2024 WL 1861011 (N.D. Cal. 

Apr. 29, 2024) (same).
12 DOE V. GARLAND

of supervision, taking into account his ability 

to pay a bond.

From the plain text of Doe’s petition, he seeks a writ of 

habeas corpus and release order from the district court unless 

Respondents provide him a bond hearing before an 

immigration judge. Absent his requested bond hearing, 

Doe’s petition requests that the district court “order his 

release within fourteen days.” 

Yet, although maintaining that his petition is a proper 

§ 2241 habeas petition, Doe asserts that the relief sought 

takes his petition outside of Padilla’s rules. Doe emphasizes 

that his petition merely sought a process remedy in the form 

of an individualized bond hearing. Doe asks the court to 

infer that, because he requested a bond hearing and made his 

release from custody a conditional request—contingent on 

receiving a bond hearing, then it follows that he was not truly 

petitioning for release from custody and thus his petition 

should be classified as a non-core habeas challenge. Doe 

relies on Pinson v. Carvajal, in which this court held that 

“claims that if successful would not necessarily lead to the 

invalidity of the custody are not at the core of habeas 

corpus,” and thus do not sound in habeas at all. 69 F.4th 

1059, 1071 (9th Cir. 2023). In other words, claims not at the 

“core of habeas corpus” are more appropriately initiated 

pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See id. at 1072; Wilkinson v. 

Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 81 (2005) (explaining that “state 

prisoners [should] use only habeas corpus (or similar state) 

remedies when they seek to invalidate the duration of their 

confinement—either directly through an injunction 

compelling speedier release or indirectly through a judicial 

determination that necessarily implies the unlawfulness of 

the State’s custody”). 
DOE V. GARLAND 13

Doe’s argument is counterintuitive and against the great 

weight of Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit authority. First, 

the conditional nature of the requested relief does not drive 

our analysis. This court has acknowledged that “[i]n modern 

practice . . . courts employ a conditional order of release in 

appropriate circumstances, which orders the State to release 

the petitioner unless the State takes some remedial action, 

such as to retry (or resentence) the petitioner.” Harvest v. 

Castro, 531 F.3d 737, 741–42 (9th Cir. 2008). The Supreme 

Court made a similar point in Herrera v. Collins, stating that 

the “typical relief granted in federal habeas corpus is a 

conditional order of release.” 506 U.S. 390, 403 (1993). 

Accordingly, Doe seeks “typical habeas relief” in asking for 

his release should Respondents fail to provide him with an 

individualized bond hearing. Id.

Doe relies primarily on Pinson and Nettles for the 

proposition that, because he did not challenge the underlying 

legal basis for his detention, but rather sought a process 

remedy in the form of a bond hearing, it follows that his 

petition falls within the “core of habeas” as defined in Pinson

but pursues non-core habeas relief as discussed in Padilla. 

We are unpersuaded that either of those cases support such a 

conclusion. 

Nettles and Pinson addressed the different question of 

whether claims were cognizable in habeas at all. In Nettles, 

an inmate pursued habeas relief following disciplinary 

segregation and the loss of good time credit. See Nettles, 

830 F.3d at 926. The petitioner sought to expunge a rules 

violation report and restore the good time credit, and this 

court accordingly found that his claims “would not 

necessarily lead to immediate or speedier release because the 

expungement of the challenged disciplinary violation would 

not necessarily lead to a grant of parole.” Id. at 927, 934–
14 DOE V. GARLAND

35. Accordingly, the court determined that the petitioner’s 

claim was not cognizable in habeas. See id. at 935. 

Pinson solidified the rule that a habeas claim is one 

challenging the fact of confinement, rather than the 

conditions of confinement. In Pinson, two inmates sought 

habeas relief, arguing that the conditions of their 

incarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic violated the 

Eighth Amendment. Pinson, 69 F.4th at 1062. This court 

rejected claimant Sands’s argument that only habeas relief 

could ameliorate the harm inflicted on him by the 

government’s ongoing failure to sufficiently treat his 

underlying illnesses and protect him from exposure to the 

coronavirus. Id. at 1063, 1065–66, 1075. In so doing, this 

court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of claimant 

Sands’s habeas petition for lack of jurisdiction, delineating 

that “the relevant question is whether, based on the 

allegations in the petition, release is legally required

irrespective of the relief requested.” Id. at 1072, 1076. In 

dismissing the petition, this court concluded that claimant 

Sands appeared to challenge only the conditions of his 

confinement and not the underlying legal basis for that 

confinement, and therefore his claim was “outside the core 

of habeas.” Id. at 1073. Pinson thus did the opposite of what 

Doe asks for here: it dismissed his petition altogether. Id. at 

1076.

Neither Pinson nor Nettles suggest that Doe’s petition is 

a non-core habeas petition under Padilla. To the contrary, 

the text of Doe’s petition indicates that his petition pursues 

habeas relief and is an attack on his present physical 

confinement at GSA, not a future restraint on his freedom. 

Accordingly, Doe’s petition falls within Pinson’s “core of 

habeas” (as a cognizable habeas petition) and is also a core 

habeas petition under Padilla (as challenging his present 
DOE V. GARLAND 15

physical confinement). We next examine whether Doe 

named the proper respondent to his core habeas petition, as 

well as whether he filed his petition in the proper judicial 

district. 

C. The District Court Erred in Exercising 

Jurisdiction Over Doe’s Petition. 

1. Doe Failed to Name His Immediate Custodian, 

the Facility Administrator and De Facto 

Warden of GSA, as Respondent. 

Upon initiating his core habeas petition in the Northern 

District of California, Doe failed to name the Facility 

Administrator of GSA as Respondent. For the reasons that 

follow, Doe’s failure to name the Facility Administrator 

renders the district court’s exercise of jurisdiction erroneous. 

“[O]ur inquiry begins with the statutory text, and ends 

there as well if the text is unambiguous.” BedRoc Ltd., LLC 

v. United States, 541 U.S. 176, 183 (2004). Section 2241 of 

Title 28 of the United States Code is followed by the 

implementing provision, Section 2242. Section 2242 states 

that habeas petitions “shall allege the facts concerning the 

applicant’s commitment or detention, the name of the person 

who has custody over him and by virtue of what claim or 

authority, if known.” 28 U.S.C. § 2242 (emphasis added). 

The plain text of the federal habeas implementation 

provision delineates that petitions must include the name of 

“the” person maintaining custody over the petitioner, id., 

implying that there is typically only one proper respondent 

to a habeas petition. See Padilla, 542 U.S. at 434 (stating 

that “[t]he consistent use of the definite article in reference 

to the custodian indicates that there is generally only one 

proper respondent to a given prisoner’s habeas petition”). 

Section 2243, which governs issuance of the writ, states that 
16 DOE V. GARLAND

“[t]he writ, or order to show cause shall be directed to the 

person having custody of the person detained.” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2243 (emphasis added). Not unlike 28 U.S.C. § 2242, 

Congress chose to use a definite article, “the,” to make clear 

that only one person can be said to maintain custody over the 

detained petitioner, and that person is the proper respondent 

to a core habeas challenge. See Padilla, 542 U.S. at 434–35; 

see also United States v. Lopez, 4 F.4th 706, 721 (9th Cir. 

2021) (stating that “definite articles like ‘the’ restrict the 

noun that follows as particularized in scope or previously 

specified by context”). Accordingly, Padilla explained 

definitively who that one proper respondent is: “in habeas 

challenges to present physical confinement—‘core 

challenges’—the default rule is that the proper respondent is 

the warden of the facility where the prisoner is being held, 

not the Attorney General or some other remote supervisory 

official.” See Padilla, 542 U.S. at 435.

Footnote eight in Padilla does not affect the application 

of the immediate custodian rule for core habeas petitions 

filed by immigrant detainees. Doe argues that footnote eight 

hints that the immediate custodian rule may not apply to 

alien detainees because the Court left open the question of 

“whether the Attorney General is a proper respondent to a 

habeas petition filed by an alien detained pending 

deportation.” Footnote eight cites six cases addressing the 

question of the proper respondent to an immigrant’s habeas 

petition. Those cases, decided prior to the 2005 enactment 

of the REAL ID Act, were analyzed under a statutory scheme 

that allowed orders of removal to be challenged through 

habeas petitions. See Singh v. Gonzales, 499 F.3d 969, 971 

(9th Cir. 2007). All but one held that the Attorney General 

was not a proper respondent. See Padilla, 542 U.S. at 435 
DOE V. GARLAND 17

n.8.5 Armentero v. Immigration and Naturalization 

Services—the only case holding that the Attorney General 

was a proper respondent—was subsequently withdrawn. 

See Armentero v. I.N.S., 340 F.3d 1058 (9th Cir. 2003), reh’g 

granted, opinion withdrawn, 382 F.3d 1153 (9th Cir. 

2004), opinion after grant of reh’g, 412 F.3d 1088 (9th Cir. 

2005). Other than Armentero, the cases cited in footnote 

eight “were challenges to removal/deportation orders and 

not to present physical confinement.” Armentero, 412 F.3d 

at 1098 n.17 (Berzon, J., dissenting). Footnote eight at most 

suggests that when an alien’s habeas petition does not 

present a core habeas challenge under Padilla, the Attorney 

General may be a proper respondent. Cf. Padilla, 542 U.S. 

at 439 (“We have never intimated that a habeas petitioner 

could name someone other than his immediate physical 

custodian as respondent simply because the challenged 

physical custody does not arise out of a criminal 

conviction.”).

Doe’s alternative argument is equally without support. 

Doe asserts that in naming the officials that he did, namely 

the Field Office Director of ICE, he has functionally named 

his immediate custodian because the Field Office Director 

retains the ultimate supervisory authority over detainees at 

the GSA. But for core habeas petitions, Padilla expressly 

“reaffirm[ed] that the immediate custodian, not a 

supervisory official who exercises legal control, is the proper 

respondent.” 542 U.S. at 440; see also id. at 440 n.13 

(“[T]he proper respondent is the person responsible for 

5 To be precise, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit 

did not hold that the Attorney General was not a proper respondent, but 

instead “reserved judgment” on the issue. See Padilla, 542 U.S. at 435 

n.8 (citing Henderson v. I.N.S., 157 F.3d 106 (2d Cir. 1998)). 
18 DOE V. GARLAND

maintaining—not authorizing—the custody of the 

prisoner.”).

Doe further asserts that “where the custodian boards their 

prisoners at a contract facility, the proper respondent to a 

habeas petition challenging such detention is the custodian 

imposing the detention, not the custodian’s mere agent in 

carrying it out.” Doe cites Fest v. Bartee and Dunne v. 

Henman, two pre-Padilla opinions by this court, in arguing 

that the private contract warden is not Doe’s immediate 

custodian and that Doe named his true immediate custodian, 

the ICE Field Office Director, as respondent. 

Fest and Dunne are inapposite for several reasons. As 

an initial matter, both cases were decided years before the 

Supreme Court’s decision in Rumsfeld v. Padilla. To the 

extent that Fest and Dunne conflict with Padilla, Padilla

controls. See Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 893 (9th Cir. 

2003) (en banc) (holding that “where the reasoning or theory 

of our prior circuit authority is clearly irreconcilable with the 

reasoning or theory of intervening higher authority, a threejudge panel should consider itself bound by the later and 

controlling authority”). 

Moreover, neither Fest nor Dunne direct us to reject the 

rules governing § 2241 petitions set forth by the Supreme 

Court in Padilla. This court’s analysis in Fest addressed the 

operation of the agency provision of the Interstate 

Corrections Compact, a factual predicate unrelated to the 

present case. See Fest v. Bartee, 804 F.2d 559, 560 (9th Cir. 

1986). Doe extrapolates from the agency analysis in Fest

and suggests that officials employed by The GEO Group 

(“GEO”), who operate GSA, are mere agents of ICE and 

unsuited to defend the government’s interests in keeping 

Doe detained. This argument fails. Even in cases where 
DOE V. GARLAND 19

private contract wardens are named as respondents, the 

government can and has stepped in to defend its interest in 

keeping petitioners detained. See 28 U.S.C. § 517 

(providing that “[t]he Solicitor General, or any officer of the 

Department of Justice, may be sent by the Attorney General 

to any State or district in the United States to attend to the 

interests of the United States in a suit pending in a court of 

the United States . . . .”); see also Smith v. Idaho, 392 F.3d 

350, 356 (9th Cir. 2004) (noting that “the custodian is the 

state’s agent” and must be “named as a respondent”); Stokes 

v. U.S. Parole Comm’n, 374 F.3d 1235, 1239 (D.C. Cir. 

2004) (holding that the proper respondent to the habeas 

petition was the private contract warden of the Ohio facility 

where petitioner was then detained); Freire v. Terry, 756 F. 

Supp. 2d 585, 585 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (providing an example 

when the United States Attorney’s office stepped in to 

defend a § 2241 petition on behalf of a private contract 

warden). 

Dunne is equally unavailing because the petitioner filed 

his § 2241 petition to attack a future sentence, not his present 

physical confinement, rendering his petition a non-core 

habeas petition under Padilla. See Dunne v. Henman, 875 

F.2d 244, 249 (9th Cir. 1989). In short, neither Fest nor 

Dunne provide the court with a reason to disregard Padilla’s 

rule and to instead examine a petitioner’s “true” or 

“functional” custodian. Under Padilla, Doe must name his 

immediate custodian, the Facility Administrator of GSA, as 

the respondent to his petition. 

Finally, Doe relies on Roman v. Ashcroft, 340 F.3d 314 

(6th Cir. 2003), a Sixth Circuit case cited in Padilla footnote 

eight, to support his position that the Field Office Director 

of ICE could properly be named as respondent. In Roman, 

the Sixth Circuit held that “a detained alien filing a habeas 
20 DOE V. GARLAND

corpus petition should generally name as a respondent the 

person exercising daily control over his affairs” and that the 

INS District Director could be a proper respondent, because 

that official “has power over” the alien habeas petitioner. 

340 F.3d at 320. However, under an earlier, pre-REAL ID 

Act statutory scheme, the petitioner in Roman challenged a 

removal order by an immigration judge, as well as the 

immigration judge’s finding that he was statutorily ineligible 

for discretionary relief pursuant to § 212(h) of the 

Immigration and Nationality Act. Id. at 316. Accordingly, 

because it did not attack his present physical confinement, 

the petitioner’s habeas challenge was non-core. Roman has 

no bearing here, where Doe’s petition challenges his present 

physical confinement. 

Doe’s practical arguments fare no better. His suggestion 

that the warden of GSA could not produce Doe before a 

judicial tribunal finds no support in the record. Moreover, 

this circuit and others have held that state and private 

contract wardens retain the ability to produce habeas 

petitioners in courts of law. See Brittingham v. United 

States, 982 F.2d 378, 379 (9th Cir. 1992) (holding that the 

warden of a California state prison was the proper 

respondent to federal habeas petition); see also Anariba, 17

F.4th at 445–46 (requiring an ICE detainee to “adhere to the 

immediate custodian rule” in filing his habeas petition);

Kholyavskiy, 443 F.3d at 953 (holding that petitioner’s 

decision to name the Chicago ICE Field Office Director and 

not the state prison warden as respondent to his habeas 

petition was a jurisdictional defect); Stokes, 374 F.3d at 1239 

(private contract warden was proper respondent). Doe 

points to no appellate authority requiring that the respondent 

to a federal habeas petition be a federal official, and we find 

none. 
DOE V. GARLAND 21

Padilla set forth a clear rule requiring core habeas 

petitioners challenging their present physical confinement to 

name their immediate custodian, the warden of the facility 

where they are detained, as the respondent to their petition. 

Padilla, 542 U.S. at 435. Doe did not adhere to this 

requirement in failing to name the Facility Administrator, 

who was the de facto warden of GSA, in his petition. 

Accordingly, the district court erred in exercising 

jurisdiction over Doe’s petition. 

2. Doe filed his petition outside of the district of 

confinement. 

The district court’s exercise of jurisdiction was also 

improper because Doe was confined in the Eastern District 

of California, not the Northern District of California, where 

his petition was filed. 

The plain language of § 2241 authorizes judges to grant 

habeas relief “within their respective jurisdictions.” 28 

U.S.C. § 2241(a). The implementation provision of the 

federal habeas statute also specifies, as a default rule, that 

there is only one proper judicial district for a habeas petition. 

Section 2242 states that “[i]f addressed to the Supreme 

Court, a justice thereof or a circuit judge it shall state the 

reasons for not making application to the district court of the 

district in which the applicant is held.” 28 U.S.C. § 2242 

(emphasis added). This provision suggests that the only 

federal court that can properly entertain a habeas petition is 

one located in the “district in which the applicant is held,” in 

other words, the district of confinement. Id. Discussing 

these provisions, Padilla states that: 

Congress has also legislated against the 

background of the “district of confinement” 
22 DOE V. GARLAND

rule by fashioning explicit exceptions to the 

rule in certain circumstances. For instance, 

§ 2241(d) provides that when a petitioner is 

serving a state criminal sentence in a State 

that contains more than one federal district, 

he may file a habeas petition not only “in the 

district court for the district wherein he is in 

custody,” but also “in the district court for the 

district within which the State court was held 

which convicted and sentenced him”; and 

“each of such district courts shall have 

concurrent jurisdiction to entertain the 

application.” Similarly, until Congress 

directed federal criminal prisoners to file 

certain postconviction petitions in the 

sentencing courts by adding § 2255 to the 

habeas statute, federal prisoners could litigate 

such collateral attacks only in the district of 

confinement. Both of these provisions would 

have been unnecessary if . . . § 2241’s general 

habeas provisions permit a prisoner to file 

outside the district of confinement.

Padilla, 542 U.S. at 443 (cleaned up). All told, “[t]he plain 

language of the habeas statute thus confirms the general rule 

that for core habeas petitions challenging present physical 

confinement, jurisdiction lies in only one district: the district 

of confinement.” Id. And this court in Lopez-Marroquin v. 

Barr affirmed the application of the district of confinement 

rule to a § 2241 petition filed by an immigrant detainee, 

ordering the transfer of his petition to the district where the 

petitioner was confined. 955 F.3d at 759–60. 
DOE V. GARLAND 23

In arguing that the Northern District of California could 

exercise jurisdiction over his habeas petition, Doe primarily 

relies on the Supreme Court’s decision in Rasul v. Bush. In 

Rasul, the Supreme Court cited Braden v. 30th Judicial 

Circuit Court of Kentucky, for the premise that in 

interpreting the “within their respective jurisdictions” 

language of 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a): 

this Court held . . . that the prisoner’s 

presence within the territorial jurisdiction of 

the district court is not ‘an invariable 

prerequisite’ to the exercise of district court 

jurisdiction under the federal habeas statute. 

Rather, because ‘the writ of habeas corpus 

does not act upon the prisoner who seeks 

relief, but upon the person who holds him in 

what is alleged to be unlawful custody,’ a 

district court acts ‘within [its] respective 

jurisdiction’ within the meaning of § 2241 as 

long as the custodian can be reached by 

service of process. 

Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466, 478–79 (2004) (citing Braden, 

410 U.S. 484, 494–95 (1973)). It follows, according to Doe, 

that the Field Office Director is Doe’s custodian, the Field 

Office Director operates out of the Northern District of 

California, and thus the district court properly exercised 

jurisdiction since the Field Office Director can be reached 

by service of process in the Northern District of California. 

Rasul does not alter the general rule that core habeas 

petitions must be filed in the district of confinement. Rasul

addressed “whether the habeas statute confers a right to 

judicial review of the legality of executive detention of 
24 DOE V. GARLAND

aliens in a territory over which the United States exercises 

plenary and exclusive jurisdiction, but not ‘ultimate 

sovereignty.’” Rasul, 542 U.S. at 475. In other words, Rasul

presented an issue wholly different from Padilla and the 

instant case—examining the unique circumstances of 

detainees at Guantanamo Naval Base, for which there is no 

judicial district. See Gherebi v. Bush, 374 F.3d 727, 739 (9th 

Cir. 2004) (discussing how Rasul applied an exception to the 

immediate custodian and district of confinement rules in the 

case of detainees at Guantanamo Bay). Accordingly, Rasul

does not help Doe. 

Doe’s remaining arguments emphasize the prudential 

concerns associated with forcing GSA detainees to file 

habeas petitions in the Eastern District of California. Doe 

highlights the high caseloads and understaffing issues in that 

district, which he suggests will inevitably lead to delays in 

habeas petitioners obtaining judicial review or a possible 

remedy. But here, 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and the related statutory 

provisions governing habeas petitions set the jurisdictional 

rules. Of course, there are prudential concerns with Doe’s 

position as well, such as the possibility of forum shopping 

and the uncertainty created by multiple possible jurisdictions 

where a § 2241 petition could be filed. But even crediting 

Doe’s concerns for docket delay and congestion, it is the job 

of Congress, not this court, to address those concerns 

through appropriate legislation. See Vasquez v. Reno, 233 

F.3d 688, 694 (1st Cir. 2000) (“If Congress apprehends that 

an overcrowding of the dockets of certain district courts 

threatens to interfere with the rights of habeas petitioners, it 

has demonstrated an ability to rectify that condition through 

legislation.”). Because “[f]ederal judges undertake to apply 

the law as it is written,” Salisbury v. City of Santa Monica, 

998 F.3d 852, 859 (9th Cir. 2021), we therefore find that the 
DOE V. GARLAND 25

district court erred in exercising jurisdiction over Doe’s 

petition due to his failure to file in the district of 

confinement. 

IV. CONCLUSION

Today we affirm the application of the immediate 

custodian and district of confinement rules to core habeas 

petitions filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241, including those 

filed by immigrant detainees. The district court erred in 

exercising jurisdiction over Doe’s core habeas petition 

because Doe failed to name his immediate custodian as 

respondent to his petition and filed the petition outside the 

district of his confinement. We thus REVERSE the district 

court’s denial of Respondents’ motion to dismiss and grant 

of Doe’s petition and REMAND this case to the district 

court with instructions to VACATE the grant of Doe’s 

petition for writ of habeas corpus.6

6 Pending before the court are two motions: Doe’s motion for judicial 

notice, Dkt. 19, and Doe’s motion to file a supplemental brief, which 

included the proposed brief. Dkt. 46. We deny both of those motions 

but note that consideration of the additional materials that are the subject 

of these motions would not change the outcome of this case.