Granillo Chavarria v. Baltazar et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Judge William J. Martínez
Civil Action No. 26-cv-0712-WJM
ALFREDO GRANILLO CHAVARRIA,
Petitioner,
v.
JUAN BALTAZAR, in his official capacity as Warden of the Denver
Contract Detention Facility, et al.
Respondents.
ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART MOTION FOR AWARD OF
ATTORNEY’S FEES PURSUANT TO THE EQUAL ACESS TO JUSTICE ACT
Before the Court is Petitioner Alfredo Granillo Chavarria’s Motion for Award of
Attorney’s Fees Pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (“Motion”). (ECF No. 20.)
Respondents Juan Baltazar, in his official capacity as Warden of the Denver Contract
Detention Facility; George Valdez, in his official capacity as Director of the Denver Field
Office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”); Markwayne Mullin, in his
official capacity as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Todd
Lyons, in his official capacity as Acting Director of ICE; and Todd Blanche, in his official
capacity as Attorney General of the United States (collectively, “Respondents” or “the
Government”) filed a response. (ECF No. 27.) Granillo Chavarria filed a reply. (ECF
No. 31.)
For the following reasons, the Motion is granted in part and denied in part.
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 1
of 11

2
I. BACKGROUND
In February 2026, Granillo Chavarria filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus
(the “Petition”) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the legality of his continued
civil immigration detention. (ECF No. 1.) In the Petition, Granillo Chavarria claimed that
an Immigration Judge had already granted his request for bond under 8 U.S.C.
§ 1226(a), but that Respondents nonetheless continued to unlawfully jail him pursuant
to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(i)(2). (Id.) That regulatory provision provides:
Automatic stay in certain cases. In any case in which DHS
has determined that an alien should not be released or has
set a bond of $10,000 or more, any order of the immigration
judge authorizing release (on bond or otherwise) shall be
stayed upon DHS's filing of a notice of intent to appeal the
custody redetermination (Form EOIR-43) with the
immigration court within one business day of the order, and .
. . shall remain in abeyance pending decision of the appeal
by the Board. The decision whether or not to file Form EOIR-
43 is subject to the discretion of the Secretary.
8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(i)(2).
The Court ordered Granillo Chavarria’s immediate release upon concluding that
“the Government’s use of the automatic stay regulation offends [Granillo Chavarria’s]
procedural due process rights.” (ECF No. 16 at 10–11.)1 By the same Order, the Court
also granted Granillo Chavarria leave to file a motion for attorney’s fees to the extent he
believed he had a good faith basis to seek them under the Equal Access to Justice Act,
28 U.S.C. § 2412 (“EAJA”). (Id. at 11–12.) Granillo Chavarria timely filed the Motion.
(ECF No. 20.)
1 The Court did not reach Granillo Chavarria’s other claims that “the automatic stay
regulation also violates [his] substantive due process rights and the [Administrative Procedure
Act].” (Id.)
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 2
of 11

3
II. ANALYSIS
Granillo Chavarria seeks $16,253 in attorney’s fees incurred litigating the Petition
and his fee motion. (Id.) The Court must consider (1) whether Granillo Chavarria
satisfies the EAJA’s statutory requirements for a fee award and (2) if so, the appropriate
amount of that award.
A. 	The Government’s Litigation Position Was Not Substantially Justified
The EAJA prescribes that
a court shall award to a prevailing party . . . fees and other
expenses . . . incurred by that party in any civil action . . .
brought by or against the United States in any court having
jurisdiction of that action, unless the court finds that the
position of the United States was substantially justified.
28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A) (emphasis added). The Tenth Circuit has held that “habeas
actions challenging immigration detention are unambiguously ‘civil actions.’” Daley v.
Ceja, 158 F.4th 1152, 1162 (10th Cir. 2025). Thus, Granillo Chavarria is entitled to
recover his attorney’s fees incurred in these habeas proceedings “if (1) [he] is a
‘prevailing party’; (2) the position of the United States was not ‘substantially justified’;
and (3) there are no special circumstances that make an award of fees unjust.” Morales
Lopez v. Baltazar, et al., --- F. Supp. 3d ---, 2026 WL 1587510, at *5 (D. Colo. May 29,
2026) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A)).
The Government contests Granillo Chavarria’s entitlement to a fee award under
the EAJA only on the grounds that its litigation position was substantially justified. (ECF
No. 27 at 3.) The Court limits its analysis accordingly. For the reasons explained
below, it disagrees with the Government.
The Government bears the burden of showing that its legal position was
substantially justified. See Gilbert v. Shalala, 45 F.3d 1391, 1394 (10th Cir.1995). To
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 3
of 11

4
determine whether the Government's position was substantially justified, courts must
look at the “totality of the circumstances, as reflected in the record before the court.”
United States v. Charles Gyurman Land & Cattle Co., 836 F.2d 480, 485 (10th Cir.
1987). “While the parties’ postures on individual matters may be more or less justified,”
courts should treat the case “as an inclusive whole, rather than atomized line-items.”
Commissioner, I.N.S. v. Jean, 496 U.S. 154, 161–62 (1990). “The test for substantial
justification in this circuit is one of reasonableness in law and fact.” Gilbert, 45 F.3d at
1394. Thus, the Government's position must be “justified to a degree that could satisfy
a reasonable person.” Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 565 (1988). The
Government's “position can be justified even though it is not correct.” Id. at 566 n.2.
Additionally, the Government’s prelitigation actions and litigation position “are both
relevant to the inquiry and must be reasonable in fact and law.” Al-Maleki v. Holder,
558 F.3d 1200, 1207 (10th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted).
In the Motion, Granillo Chavarria argues that neither Respondents’ pre-litigation
position nor its litigation position were substantially justified. (ECF No. 20 at 5.)
However, there is some ambiguity, in the Court’s view, as to how the parties are
defining those positions. Respondents, for their part, seem to suggest the Court should
consider only the reasonableness of their legal position on issues actually resolved by
the Court’s Order granting the Petition—i.e., Granillo Chavarria’s procedural due
process claim.2 Even adopting Respondents’ view and limiting its analysis accordingly,
the Court cannot conclude their litigation position was substantially justified.
2 Specifically, Respondents argue Granillo Chavarria’s challenge to “the legal basis of
DHS’s BIA appeal—that he was subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)”—
“is not relevant to the EAJA fee analysis” because “[t]he Court ultimately did not address that
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 4
of 11

5
As noted above, the Court ultimately granted the Petition on the grounds that “the
Government’s application of 8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(i)(2) has violated Granillo Chavarria’s
procedural due process rights,” as guided by its analysis of the three factors set forth in
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976). (ECF No. 16 at 4.) Despite the Court’s
disagreement with the Government’s assessment of the Mathews factors, the
Government asserts “it is not unreasonable to suggest that the burden of a 90-day stay
for the purpose of facilitating appellate review of an immigration judge’s bond decision is
not so grave that it constitutes a violation of due process.” (ECF No. 27 at 4.) That is
particularly so, it argues, when considering that “aliens unlawfully present in the United
States ‘are due less process . . . than an ordinary citizen would have.’” (Id. (quoting
Miranda v. Garland, 34 F.4th 338, 361 (4th Cir. 2022)).
The Court is unpersuaded. As Respondents note, by the time Granillo Chavarria
filed the Petition in February 2026, district courts across the country were nearly—if not
completely—unanimous in finding “that DHS’s application of the automatic stay
pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(i)(2) violates a non-citizen’s due process under the Fifth
Amendment” in cases where DHS invoked the automatic stay to continue detaining a
non-citizen who had been granted bond by an IJ. M.P.L. v. Arteta, 2025 WL 3288354,
at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 25, 2025) (collecting decisions of 50 district courts); see also
J.M.P. v. Arteta, 807 F. Supp. 3d 265, 288 (S.D.N.Y. 2025) (“To the Court’s knowledge,
since DHS began regularly invoking the automatic stay provision earlier this year, no
district court has held that it comports with due process.”); Vargas Lopez v. Trump, 802
F. Supp. 3d 1132, 1143 (D. Neb. 2025) (“[N]o district court has concluded in 2025—that
issue.” (ECF No. 27 at 2 n.1.)
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 5
of 11

6
is, since what appears to have been a policy change within the DHS over application of
8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(i)(2)—that the regulation comports with due process.”). Indeed,
Respondents have not directed the Court to the decision of a single court adopting their
view that the application of the automatic stay regulation under analogous
circumstances comports with due process.
What’s more, while litigation concerning the constitutionality of the automatic stay
regulation has proliferated in recent months,3 the due process concerns surrounding its
application to noncitizen detainees like Granillo Chavarria are not new. Based on the
Court’s research, federal courts have been reaching similar conclusions since at least
2003. See, e.g., Ashley v. Ridge, 288 F. Supp. 2d 662, 671 (D.N.J. 2003) (“The
Government cannot withstand a procedural due process objection by arguing that due
process is provided, then given no import. Indeed, the automatic stay provision nullifies
the very purpose of giving aliens procedural protections in deportation proceedings.”).
Considering the overwhelming authority rejecting DHS’s invocation of the
automatic stay provision in cases materially identical to this one—and Respondents’
failure to direct the Court to the decision of even a single court condoning its
invocation—the Court finds that the Government’s litigation position regarding the
automatic stay provision lacked substantial justification. See Pierce, 487 U.S. at 569
3 This is, of course, a byproduct of DHS’s exponentially increased reliance on the
automatic stay regulation under the current presidential administration. See J.M.P., 2025 WL
2984913, at *11 (“The automatic stay provision was rarely employed: between 2015 and 2021,
the automatic stay provision was used on average only 26 times a year, on a detained
population that numbers in the tens of thousands on any given day, with only two cases being
subject to the automatic stay in 2021. . . . But as indicated by the dozens of court cases holding
the automatic stay provision unconstitutional in the past few months, the automatic stay is
apparently now being used with far more frequency.”).
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 6
of 11

7
(noting “a string of losses can be indicative” of whether the Government’s position
lacked substantial justification). As a result, attorney fees under the EAJA are available
to Granillo Chavarria.
B. 	Fee Amount
Having concluded that Granillo Chavarria is entitled to an award of fees under
the EAJA, the Court considers the appropriate fee amount. The EAJA permits an
eligible prevailing party to recover “reasonable attorney fees.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2142(d)(2)(A) (emphasis added). The determination of attorney's fees is ultimately
discretionary, especially given the district court's close understanding of the litigation
and desire to avoid frequent appellate review of factual matters. Rocky Mountain Wild
v. Vilsack, 2013 WL 3233573, at *4 (D. Colo. 2013). Nevertheless, the party seeking
the award bears the burden of persuading the Court that the amount is reasonable.
Taylor v. Colvin, 2015 WL 2375907, at *2 (D. Colo. May 15, 2015).
As noted above, Granillo Chavarria requests that the Court award him $16,253 in
attorney’s fees, which includes $10,584 in fees his counsel incurred litigating his petition
for habeas corpus, and $5,669 in fees his counsel incurred litigating his application for
fees. (ECF No. 20 at 8.) Respondents do not challenge the reasonableness of the
number of hours expended by Granillo Chavarria’s counsel. But, they oppose Granillo
Chavarria’s request “that enhanced rates . . . be awarded for the time spent by
attorneys Hans Meyer and Conor Gleason.” (Id.)
Under the EAJA, fees ordinarily “shall not be awarded in excess of $125 per hour
unless the court determines that an increase in the cost of living or a special factor,
such as the limited availability of qualified attorneys for the proceedings involved,
justifies a higher fee.” 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(2)(A). The latter “special factor” exception
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 7
of 11

8
“refers to attorneys having some distinctive knowledge or specialized skill needful for
the litigation in question—as opposed to an extraordinary level of the general lawyerly
knowledge and ability useful in all litigation.” Pierce, 487 U.S. at 572. “Examples of the
former” include “an identifiable practice specialty such as patent law, or knowledge of
foreign law or language.” Id. “Where such qualifications are necessary and can be
obtained only at rates in excess of the [statutory] cap, reimbursement above that limit is
allowed.” Id.
Importantly, “[i]ncomparable expertise, standing alone, will not justify the higher
rate.” Vibra-Tech Eng’rs v. United States, 787 F.2d 1416, 1420 (10th Cir. 1986).
“Rather, the statutory cap may be exceeded only in the ‘unusual situation’ where the
legal services rendered require specialized training and expertise unattainable by a
competent attorney through a diligent study of the governing legal principles.”
Chynoweth v. Sullivan, 920 F.2d 648, 650 (10th Cir. 1990) (quoting Vibra-Tech, 787
F.2d at 1420).
Granillo Chavarria contends that “this case required specialized expertise
involving complex immigration litigation experience.” (ECF No. 20 at 9.) He directs the
Court to authority describing the immigration laws as “second only to the Internal
Revenue Code in complexity,” Castro-O’Ryan v. U.S. Dep’t of Immigration & Nat., 847
F.2d 1307, 1312 (9th Cir. 1987) (citation omitted), and recognizing “that knowledgeable
[immigration] attorneys are limited and that immigration issues are often complex and
novel,” Barber v. Weber, 2005 WL 1846985, at *2 (D. Colo. Aug. 1, 2005). And, he
submits the declarations of several experienced practitioners in the field of immigration
law generally attesting that Meyer and Gleason’s specialized knowledge and expertise
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 8
of 11

9
is not available at the EAJA statutory rate, even adjusted for inflation. (ECF Nos. 20-4
through 20-7.) Granillo Chavarria further points out that his counsel was the first in this
District to litigate the automatic stay issue in Campos v. Baltazar, 2025 WL 4083611, at
*1 (D. Colo. Nov. 13, 2025). (ECF No. 31 at 9.)
Respondents do not contest that “Petitioner’s counsel are highly experienced
immigration practitioners.” (ECF No. 27 at 7.) But they argue that Granillo Chavarria
has failed to explain how their particular expertise was necessary to this litigation. (Id.)
Considering the “robust body of district court decisions to draw on,” Respondents
submit that “it is difficult to argue that preparing the automatic stay argument in this case
could not have been done absent the high degree of skill and experience claimed by
Petitioner’s counsel.” (Id.) Further to the same point, the Court notes that the cases
Granillo Chavarria cites where courts awarded prevailing market rates appear
distinguishable from this one.
For instance, in Garcia v. Wamsley, the district court specifically justified an
EAJA fee award at market rates on the basis that counsel’s “distinctive knowledge and
skill has allowed them to identify detained class members . . . and bring their claims in
weekly group petitions that ultimately require far fewer hours than would otherwise be
expended were each claim brought individually.” 824 F. Supp. 3d 1159, 1169 (W.D.
Wash. 2026). This case is, of course, not a class action.
Moreover, the Court pauses to note that in the District of Colorado in 2026
immigration habeas petitioners have been represented by attorneys located throughout
the country. Thus, the question of the availability of other counsel expert in the field of
immigration law is not properly limited solely to members of the Colorado bar but
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 9
of 11

10
should, in the Court’s view, be considered in the context of what is, in effect, a
nationwide immigration bar.
Balancing Granillo Chavarria’s competent evidence that immigration practitioners
with Meyer and Gleason’s knowledge and expertise are not available at the statutory
rate and the Government’s legitimate contention regarding the (unfortunate) frequency
with which single petitioner habeas petitions like Granillo Chavarria’s are now litigated,
the Court concludes that an enhanced, blended hourly rate representing the average
between the cost-of-living adjusted maximum rate of $261.124 and Meyer and
Gleason’s requested market rates most appropriately serves the interest of justice here.
Cf. Constantinovici v. Bondi, 2026 WL 2020467, at *3 (S.D. Cal. July 13, 2026)
(awarding “a limited enhancement” above the statutory rate).
Accordingly, the Court will apply an hourly rate of $487.56 (the average of $714
and the cost-of-living adjusted rate of $261.12) to the hours expended by attorney
Meyer, and an hourly rate of $450.56 (the average of $640 and the cost-of-living
adjusted rate of $216.12) to the hours expended by attorney Gleason. This results in a
total recovery of (1) $4,436.80 in fees billed by attorney Meyer ($487.56 x 9.1 hours);
(2) $5,406.72 in fees billed by attorney Gleason ($450.56 x 12 hours); (3) $2,244.60 in
fees billed by attorney Anahi Quezada ($258 x 8.7 hours); and (4) $15 in fees billed by
paralegal Jackie Aldrete ($150 x 0.1 hours). (ECF No. 20-2 at ¶¶ 21–22; ECF No. 20-
9.)
4 The Government does not appear to oppose a cost-of-living adjusted hourly rate, which
it submits would result in a maximum available rate of $261.12 per hour based on the
unadjusted national consumer price index. (ECF No. 27 at 5.)
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 10
of 11

11
In sum, Granillo Chavarria shall be entitled to his attorney’s fees in the amount of
$12,103.12.
III. CONCLUSION
For all the reasons set forth above, the Court ORDERS as follows:
1. 	Petitioner’s Motion for Award of Attorney’s Fees Pursuant to the Equal
Access to Justice Act (ECF No. 20) is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART;
2. 	Granillo Chavarria is AWARDED attorney’s fees under the EAJA in the
total amount of $12,103.12; and
3. 	The Government is ORDERED to make such payment in full to Granillo
Chavarria by no later than September 30, 2026.
Dated this 26th day of August, 2026.
BY THE COURT:
______________________
William J. Martinez
Senior United States District Judge
Case No. 1:26-cv-00712-WJM Document 36 filed 08/26/26 USDC Colorado pg 11
of 11