Case Name in Immigration Case - Unavailable

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA
Claire Glenn, CLIMATE DEFENSE PROJECT, PO Box 7040, Minneapolis, MN
55407, for Petitioner.
Ana H. Voss, Liles Harvey Repp, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, 300
South Fourth Street, Suite 600, Minneapolis, MN 55415, for Respondents.
On January 15, 2026, Petitioner Luis E. M. C. filed a Petition for a Writ of Habeas
Corpus. (Docket No. 1.) Respondents then filed a Motion to Dismiss or Transfer (Docket
No. 5) and submitted a consolidated memorandum offering arguments on the motion to
dismiss as well as on the merits of the habeas petition. Because the Court concludes that
LUIS E. M. C.,
Petitioner,
v.
PAMELA BONDI, United States Attorney
General;
KRISTI NOEM, 	Secretary, 	United States
Department of Homeland Security;
TODD M. LYONS, Acting Director, United
States 	Immigration 	and 	Customs
Enforcement;
DAVID EASTERWOOD, Acting Director of
St. Paul Field Office, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement;
Respondents.
Civil No. 26-333 (JRT/DTS)
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
DENYING RESPONDENTS’ MOTION TO
DISMISS OR TRANSFER AND GRANTING
PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
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it possesses jurisdiction over this case and that Petitioner’s detention is unlawful, the
Court will deny Respondents’’ Motion to Dismiss or Transfer and order Petitioner’s
immediate return to Minnesota and release from custody.
FACTS
Petitioner is a resident of St. Paul, Minnesota and a citizen of Ecuador. (Pet. Writ
of Habeas Corpus (“Pet.”) ¶ 7, Jan. 15, 2026, Docket No. 1; Decl. of Xiong Lee (“Lee Decl.”)
¶ 4, Jan. 19, 2026, Docket No. 7.) Respondents state that he “entered the United States
at an unknown place on an unknown date and entered the United States without
inspection or parole.” (Lee Decl. ¶ 5.) Petitioner says that he has resided in the United
States since 2011. (Pet. ¶ 12.)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) officers arrested Petitioner on
January 12, 2026. (Id. ¶ 12.)1 He was immediately “transported to the [Enforcement and
Removal Operations] St. Paul office for processing.” (Lee Decl. ¶ 6.)
Petitioner filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus on January 15, 2026. (Docket
No. 1.) The petition alleges that Petitioner “was not shown or provided an arrest warrant
when he was detained” (Pet. ¶ 16), and he requests his immediate release, or in the
1 Respondents state that “[Enforcement and Removal Operations] St. Paul encountered
[Petitioner] during ICE operations in New Richmond, WI.” (Lee Decl. ¶ 6.) Petitioner questions
whether this “means to convey that Petitioner was surveilled in Wisconsin (and then arrested in
Minnesota), or surveilled and arrested in Wisconsin.” (Pet.’s Reply at 8 n. 3, Jan. 21, 2026, Docket
No. 10.) 	In any event, the precise location of Petitioner’s arrest is immaterial to the relevant
issues before the Court.
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alternative, a bond hearing, on the grounds that his continued detention is violates the
Fifth Amendment, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the Administrative Procedure
Act (Pet. ¶ 30–47).
Respondents, in turn, filed a motion requesting that the Court dismiss the petition,
or in the alternative, transfer it to the United States District Court for the Western District
of Texas. (Mot. Dismiss or Transfer, Jan. 19, 2026, Docket No. 5.) Respondents argue that
because Petitioner was transferred out of the District of Minnesota before the filing of his
habeas petition, this Court lacks jurisdiction. Petitioner argues that an exception to the
baseline jurisdictional rules in habeas cases applies here, because counsel had no way of
ascertaining Petitioner’s location at the time the petition was filed, and Minnesota was
his last known, and thought to be his continued, location.
As directed in the Court’s January 15, 2026 Order, Respondents’ memorandum
also addressed the merits of the petition. They argue that Petitioner’s detention is lawful
under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2) and ask the Court to deny the petition.
DISCUSSION
I. 	MOTION TO DISMISS OR TRANSFER
Respondents argue that the Court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate the merits of
Petitioner’s habeas petition because Respondents removed Petitioner from Minnesota
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before the petition was filed. 	After careful consideration, the Court will deny the motion
to dismiss or transfer.2
In a typical case involving a habeas petition brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a), a
petitioner who “seeks to challenge his present physical custody within the United
States . . . should name his warden as respondent and file the petition in the district of
confinement.” 	Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 428 (2004). 	These procedural
requirements exist because a 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,” Braden v. 30th Jud. Cir. Ct. of Ky., 410 U.S. 484, 494–95 (1973), and the district
court must “have jurisdiction over” that custodian, Padilla, 542 U.S. at 442. The Supreme
Court has described these rules, which are “derived from the terms of the habeas
statute,” as being intended to “prevent[] forum shopping by habeas petitioners”—
because without them, a prisoner could name a “high-level supervisory official as
respondent and then sue that person wherever he is amenable to long-arm jurisdiction.”
Id. at 447.3
2 This Court recently considered similar facts in Abdiselan A. A. v. Bondi, Civil No. 26-358,
2026 WL 161526 (D. Minn. Jan. 21, 2026) and reached a similar conclusion.
3 “These rules, however, are not jurisdictional in the sense of a limitation on subject-
matter jurisdiction.” Padilla, 542 U.S. at 451 (Kennedy, J., concurring). They are instead “best
understood as a question of personal jurisdiction or venue.” Id.
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But exceptions exist to these baseline rules. See Padilla, 542 U.S. at 435; see also
Xia v. King, No. 24-2000, 2025 WL 240792, at *2 (D. Minn. Jan. 17, 2025) (recognizing the
existence of certain exceptions). 	For example, the Supreme Court has recognized that
when “a prisoner is held in an undisclosed location by an unknown custodian, it is
impossible to apply” the typical rules for determining the proper forum for a habeas
petition. Padilla, 542 U.S. at 450 n.18.
The information before the Court shows that at the time of the filing of the habeas
petition in this case, Petitioner was held in an undisclosed location by an unknown
custodian. Petitioner, a resident of St. Paul, was arrested on January 12 and immediately
detained in Minnesota. In a declaration submitted by Plaintiff’s counsel, she states that
after the arrest, Petitioner called Petitioner’s wife “from a detention facility in Minnesota
and indicated he had been informed that he was not being transferred.” (Decl. of Claire
Nicole Glenn (“Glenn Decl.”) ¶ 3, Jan. 22, 2026, Docket No. 13.) Plaintiff’s counsel states
further that when she checked ICE’s “Online Detainee Locator” immediately prior to filing
the habeas petition, the website did not display any location for Petitioner and instead
stated “Call ICE For Details.” 4 (Id. ¶ 2.) Having no reason to consider any other District
as the proper forum for the petition, counsel filed it in the District in which Petitioner was
believed to be confined—this one. But in fact, Respondents had transported Petitioner
4 Counsel states that she has “made numerous efforts to call ICE’s St. Paul Field Office in
the past eleven days, and every time [she has] done so [she is] met with a busy signal.” (Glenn
Decl. ¶ 4.)
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to a detention facility in El, Paso Texas, where he landed at 4:05 p.m. CST on January 13—
roughly two days before the habeas petition was filed. (Lee Decl. ¶ 9.)
This fact does not deprive the Court of jurisdiction. “The very nature of the writ
[of habeas corpus] demands that it be administered with the initiative and flexibility
essential to insure that miscarriages of justice within its reach are surfaced and
corrected.” 	Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 291 (1969). 	The Court concludes, as other
courts in this District have, that when “Government-controlled transfers,” like the one in
this case are “executed within hours of detention and before communication with counsel
is possible” such conduct “risk[s] defeating timely judicial review.” E.E. v. Bondi, No. 26-
314, at 5 (D. Minn. Jan. 17, 2026). Departing from the presumptive jurisdictional inquiry
in certain narrow situations such as this one helps ensure that the “the Kafkaesque
specter of supplicants wandering endlessly from one jurisdiction to another in search of
a proper forum” does not come to pass. Eisel v. Sec.’y of the Army, 477 F.2d 1251, 1258
(D.C. Cir. 1973). To alleviate these concerns and to allow the Court to provide timely relief
to Petitioner, the Court finds that it possessed jurisdiction at the time Petitioner’s counsel
filed the habeas petition and retains it still.
II. 	PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
The Court now turns to the merits of the petition. 	Respondents contend that
Petitioner is subject to mandatory detention pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2). However,
as in Herrera Avila v. Bondi, No. 25-3741, 2025 WL 2976539 (D. Minn. 2025), alongside
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hundreds of district court decisions nationwide, the Court concludes the mandatory
detention provision of § 1225(b)(2) does not apply to Petitioner. 	While the record
contains few facts regarding Petitioner’s arrival to the United States, it appears clear that,
for the same reasons stated in Herrera Avila, Petitioner’s long presence in the United
States prior to his arrest means that he is not subject to the mandatory detention under
§ 1225(b)(2).
The Court therefore turns to the proper remedy. In previous cases involving this
issue, the Court has concluded that a bond hearing pursuant to § 1226(a) is the
appropriate remedy. 	However, the Court is now persuaded that where, as here,
(1) Respondents erroneously assert a detainee is being held pursuant to § 1225(b)(2); and
(2) Respondents have not produced any warrant, as is required to effectuate an arrest
pursuant to § 1226(a), the appropriate remedy is release from custody. See, e.g., Ahmed
M. v. Bondi, No. 25-4711, 2026 WL 25627, at *3 (D. Minn. Jan. 5, 2026); Lauro M. v. Bondi,
No. 26-134, 2026 WL 115022, at *3 (D. Minn. Jan. 15, 2026); cf. Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S.
674, 693 (2008) (“Habeas is at its core a remedy for unlawful executive detention. . . . The
typical remedy for such detention is, of course, release.”).
ORDER
Based on the foregoing, and all the files, records, and proceedings herein, IT IS
HEREBY ORDERED that:
1. 	The Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus (Docket No. [1]) is GRANTED.
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2. 	Respondents’ Motion to Dismiss or Transfer (Docket No. [5]) is DENIED.
3. 	Respondents shall immediately return Petitioner to the State of Minnesota within
72 hours, where he must be released from custody.
4. 	Additionally, within 72 hours, the parties shall file a notice with the Court
concerning the status of Petitioner’s release.
DATED: January 23, 2026 	_____/s/ John S. Tunheim ____
at Minneapolis, Minnesota, 	JOHN R. TUNHEIM
at 3:00 P.M. 	United States District Judge
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