Munoz Ramirez v. Bondi et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Judge Regina M. Rodriguez
Civil Action No. 25-cv-1002-RMR
ALFREDO MUNOZ RAMIREZ, also known as Dayana Munoz Ramirez,1
Petitioner,
v.
PAMELA BONDI, in her official capacity as Attorney General of the United States,
ROBERT GUADIAN, in his official capacity as Field Office Director, Denver, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
KRISTI NOEM, in her official capacity as Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security,
TODD LYONS, in his official capacity as Acting Director of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, and
DAWN CEJA, in her official capacity as warden of the Aurora Contract Detention
Facility,
Respondents.
ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Petitioner’s Motion to Enforce the Judgment.
ECF No. 23. On May 5, 2025, this Court ordered that “[o]n or before May 12, 2025,
Respondents shall take Petitioner before an impartial adjudicator for a constitutionally
adequate, individualized bond hearing.” Ramirez v. Bondi, No. 25-CV-1002-RMR, 2025
WL 1294919, at *8 (D. Colo. May 5, 2025). On May 19, 2025, Respondents filed a Status
1 On April 29, 2025, this Court issued a Minute Order stating it was amending the caption to reflect the
real party of interest, Alfredo Munoz Ramirez a/k/a Dayana Munoz Ramirez, because Fed. R. Civ. P.
10(a) requires the caption contain the name of all parties. ECF No. 12. In their filings, both parties
continue to use the wrong caption. See ECF Nos. 23, 25, 28-30.
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Report Regarding Compliance with the Court’s May 5, 2025, order, reporting that
Petitioner Dayana Munoz Ramirez (“Petitioner” or “Ms. Ramirez”) received a bond
hearing and was granted bond on May 14, 2025. ECF No. 15. On or about October 13,
2025, Petitioner was detained by local law enforcement in Austin, TX. She was
transferred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) custody in Texas on
October 17, 2025. Petitioner claims that the government’s re-detention of her violates this
Court’s order and judgment. ECF No. 23 at 3. She asks this Court for an immediate order
requiring her release. Id. at 5. This Court is not convinced that Petitioner’s re-detention
violates this Court’s order, and thus, DENIES the relief requested.
I. 	BACKGROUND2
Ms. Ramirez is a transgender woman from El Salvador.3 She first entered the
United States in 1993 as a teenager. She was removed to El Salvador in December 2016,
where she first started living publicly as a woman. She re-entered the United States
around May 2019. The record indicates she has multiple criminal convictions in the United
States, involving vehicle theft, possession of marijuana, and assault, some of which
occurred before her removal in 2016, and at least one conviction related to vehicle theft
that occurred since she returned to the United States in 2019.
2 The Court takes the facts from the Court’s order in Ramirez v. Bondi, No. 25-CV-1002-RMR, 2025 WL
1294919, at *1 (D. Colo. May 5, 2025), the parties’ briefing, ECF Nos. 23, 28, 30, and attached exhibits,
ECF Nos. 23-1, 23-2, 28-1.
3 Petitioner’s sex assigned at birth was male and her legal name is Alfredo Munoz Ramirez. Although she
has not had the opportunity to legally change her name, Petitioner is a transgender woman and uses the
name Dayana and she/her pronouns. The Court refers to her accordingly.
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Beginning in November 2023, she was detained at the Aurora ICE Detention
Center in Aurora, CO, under 8 U.S.C. § 1231, while she awaited decisions from the Tenth
Circuit Court of Appeals (“Tenth Circuit”) on her appeals of multiple Board of Immigration
Appeals (“BIA”) decisions related to her order of removal. Under § 1231, “when a
[noncitizen] is ordered removed, the Attorney General shall remove the [noncitizen] from
the United States within a period of 90 days.” § 1231(a)(1). However, certain categories
of noncitizens who have been ordered removed—including inadmissible or criminal
noncitizens, or noncitizens whom the Attorney General has determined are a risk to the
community or are unlikely to comply with the removal order—“may be detained beyond
the removal period.” § 1231(a)(6).
On March 28, 2025, Ms. Ramirez filed a Petition of Writ of Habeas Corpus
(“Habeas Petition”), ECF No. 1, and Petitioner's Motion for Temporary Restraining Order
(“TRO”), ECF No. 2. On May 5, 2025, this Court granted in part and denied in part Ms.
Ramirez’s Habeas Petition and denied as moot her TRO because after 505 days of
detention, this Court held that her detention had become so prolonged as to violate due
process. See Ramirez, 2025 WL 1294919, at *7. This Court found that Ms. Ramirez’s
“continued detention require[d] an individualized bond hearing before an [Immigration
Judge (“IJ”)] in order to comport with due process.” Id. This Court ordered that:
On or before May 12, 2025, Respondents shall take Petitioner before an
impartial adjudicator for a constitutionally adequate, individualized bond
hearing, in which (1) [Respondents] bear[] the burden of establishing by
clear and convincing evidence that continued detention is justified; (2) the
adjudicator 	is 	required 	to 	meaningfully 	consider 	alternatives 	to
imprisonment such as community-based alternatives to detention including
conditional release, parole, as well as Petitioner's ability to pay a bond; (3)
the adjudicator may not give undue 	weight 	to allegations underlying
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dismissed criminal charges; (4) the adjudicator may not place undue weight
on unauthenticated or antiquated documents regarding alleged criminal
legal 	contacts; 	and 	(5) 	the 	adjudicator 	must 	take 	into 	consideration
Petitioner's mental health diagnoses and trauma when considering criminal
legal contacts.
Id. at *8. On May 14, 2025, the IJ issued an order granting Ms. Ramirez's release from
custody under a bond of $8,000.00. ECF No 23-1 at 4. The IJ found that Respondents
failed to meet their burden of establishing that Ms. Ramirez would be a danger in the
community, in part, because Respondents failed to provide “any criminal conviction
documents related to any other conviction besides” a conviction in 1997 and two
convictions in 2007 that “occurred over a decade and a half ago.” ECF No. 23-1 at 5.
Respondents’ records referred to a June 15, 2022, arrest and a November 9, 2023,
conviction, but Respondents failed to submit criminal records of the more recent criminal
conduct. Id. The IJ also found that Respondents failed to establish that Ms. Ramirez would
be a flight risk. Id. at 6. Upon release, Ms. Ramirez was placed in ICE’s Alternatives to
Detention Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (“ADT-ISAP”). ADT-ISAP imposed
certain conditions on Ms. Ramirez, including a condition that she does not use illegal
drugs of any kind or commit any criminal acts.4 ECF No. 28 at 5. On July 7, 2025,
Respondents filed their notice of appeal of this Court’s decision granting a bond hearing.
ECF No. 17. On July 24, 2025, this Court entered final judgment in the Habeas Petition
4 The Respondents provided the Court a copy of the rules for ICE’s Alternatives to Detention Intensive
Supervision Appearance Program (“ADT-ISAP”) in Spanish, ECF No. 28-1 at 13-16, but did not provide
an English translation.
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matter and ordered the case closed. ECF No. 22. The appeal is still pending with the
Tenth Circuit.
On May 27, 2025, Ms. Ramirez was released from detention and moved to Austin,
TX, to live with her sponsor. ECF No. 23-2 at 2. Ms. Ramirez asserts she has complied
with all the requirements set forth by ICE. ECF No. 23-2 at 3. Respondents do not contest
that she complied with her bond conditions until on or about October 13, 2025, when she
was stopped by local law enforcement in Austin, TX. Ms. Ramirez initially claimed that
she was stopped “for riding a scooter with a broken taillight,” and even though “she was
not charged with any criminal activity,” she was told she was being detained because ICE
had a warrant out for her arrest. ECF No. 23 at 3. She believes the warrant is likely related
to her removal order, which has been stayed pending the Tenth Circuit’s decision
regarding the BIA’s decisions. Id.
The Respondent’s Response provides some additional information. It appears that
Ms. Ramirez was arrested on or about October 14, 2025 “for possession of controlled
substance in violation of Tex. Health & Safety Code § 481.115(b).” ECF No. 28 at 5-6.
Tex. Health & Safety Code § 481.115(b) makes it a “state jail felony” to possess less than
one gram of a controlled substance listed in Tex. Health & Safety Code §§ 481.102,
481.1022, which includes various opiates. It is unknown which controlled substance Ms.
Ramirez was arrested for. On October 16, 2025, the Travis County District Attorney’s
office in Austin, TX, declined to file felony charges “at this time” in exchange for time
served and a condition of no new arrests for 90 days. ECF No. 28-1 at 18. Respondents
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argue that she was detained by ICE after being released from state custody because her
“drug-crime arrest violated a condition of her release.” ECF No. 28 at 6.
II. 	ANALYSIS
First, Ms. Ramirez argues that “without any showing of new facts, post release
violations, 	or 	danger 	nullifies 	the 	effect 	of 	this 	Court’s 	ruling 	and 	constitutes
noncompliance with this Court’s judgement [sic].” ECF No. 23 at 4. This Court is not
convinced that Respondents violated this Court’s May 5, 2025, order. The order was to
conduct an individualized bond hearing, in which Respondents bore the burden of
establishing, by clear and convincing evidence, that continued detention was justified,
meaning they had to prove that Ms. Ramirez was a danger to the community or a flight
risk. Ramirez, 2025 WL 1294919, at *8. That bond hearing took place as ordered. During
the bond hearing, Respondents were unable to meet their burden. ECF No. 23-1 at 6.
The IJ is authorized to set the conditions of release, which she did. See 8 U.S.C. §
1231(a)(3)(D); 8 C.F.R. § 241.4(j)(1); see also In Re Guerra, 24 I. & N. Dec. 37, 38 (BIA
2006) (noting that the Attorney General has delegated its authority to prescribe conditions
for noncitizens released on bond to IJs). The Court is not convinced that Mr. Ramirez’s
re-detention after an arrest for the possession of a controlled substance violates this
Court’s order for a bond hearing, considering that the bond hearing took place within the
parameters ordered by this Court.
Ms. Ramirez also argues that her due process rights were violated because: 1) “a
non-prosecuted arrest [] by itself [cannot] establish a violation of immigration release
conditions”; and 2) Respondents failed to follow the procedures outlined in 8 C.F.R. §
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241.4 when they revoked her release for a violation of the conditions of release without
notice and a opportunity to respond. ECF No. 30. Courts around the country indeed have
granted habeas relief when the court found that the petitioner’s due process rights were
violated because the government failed to comply with its own regulations and law,
specifically when the government re-detains a petitioner without providing notice “of the
reasons for revocation of his or her release” and affording the petitioner an ““initial informal
interview” to allow the noncitizen an opportunity to respond to and contest the reasons
for revocation” under 8 C.F.R. § 241.4(l)(1). Villanueva v. Tate, 801 F. Supp. 3d 689, 694
(S.D. Tex. 2025). However, the Court will note in all the cases cited by Ms. Ramirez in
her briefs, the petitioner, unlike Ms. Ramirez, had “not been arrested, charged, or
convicted of any criminal offense since [their] release.” Id.
However, this Court need not decide the merits of Ms. Ramirez’s due process
claim because the Court agrees with Respondents that it does not have jurisdiction to
hear her new claim. Section 2241(a) of Title 28 of the United States Code provides in
relevant part that “[w]rits of habeas corpus may be granted by . . . the district courts within
their 	respective 	jurisdictions” 	when 	a 	petitioner 	“is 	in 	custody 	in 	violation 	of 	the
Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2241. As courts in this
District have previously observed, “[u]nder the district of confinement rule, which is ‘the
general rule that for core habeas petitions challenging present physical confinement,
jurisdiction lies in only one district: the district of confinement.’” Dvortsin v. Noem, No. 25-
CV-01741-NYW, 2025 WL 1751968, at *3 (D. Colo. June 12, 2025) (citing Rumsfeld v.
Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 443 (2004)).
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There are scenarios where a district court retains jurisdiction of a habeas petition
after the petitioner is transferred out of the district court's jurisdiction. See Valdez v. Joyce,
803 F. Supp. 3d 213, 219 (S.D.N.Y. 2025) (ordering petitioners' immediate release from
a detention center in Texas after finding “[r]espondents’ ongoing detention of [p]etitioner,
[who had no criminal history and was arrested by ICE after voluntarily attending his
immigration court date in New York], 	with no process at all, much less prior notice, no
showing of changed circumstances, or an opportunity to respond, violates his due
process rights”). That is because the district of confinement is measured at the moment
the habeas petition is filed. Specifically, the United States Supreme Court has held that:
[T]he District Court acquired jurisdiction in this case and that the removal of
[Petitioner] did not cause it to lose jurisdiction where a person in whose
custody she remains within the district.
Ex parte Endo, 323 U.S. 283, 306 (1944). In the context of this action, Ms. Ramirez was
detained in this District and properly filed her Habeas Petition in this Court. But she was
not transferred to a facility outside of this District while her Habeas Petition was pending.
Instead, her Habeas Petition was resolved when this Court granted in part and denied in
part her petition. Final judgment was entered, and the Habeas Petition matter in this
District was closed. Thus, Ms. Ramirez must file a new Habeas petition challenging the
due process of her re-detention in the district where she is confined.
III. 	CONCLUSION
Consistent with the foregoing, the Court does not find that Respondents violated
this Court’s order requiring an individualized bond hearing when they re-detained Ms.
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Ramirez in Texas after she was arrested, but not charged, by local law enforcement for
possession of less than a gram of an unidentified controlled substance. Nor does the
Court find that it has the jurisdiction to weigh the merits of Ms. Ramirez’s due process
claims because the District 	of 	Colorado 	is 	not the district of confinement. Thus,
Petitioner’s Motion to Enforce the Judgment, ECF No. 23, is DENIED.
DATED: February 18, 2026
BY THE COURT:
_____________________________
REGINA M. RODRIGUEZ
United States District Judge
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