Vu v. Dosanj et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF HAWAI‘I
QUANG DUY VU,
Petitioner,
vs.
SHIKHA DOSANJ, in her official capacity
as Warden of the Federal Detention Center,
Honolulu, Hawai‘i, et al.,
Respondents.
Civil No. 26-00013 MWJS-RT
ORDER GRANTING PETITION FOR
WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
INTRODUCTION
Petitioner Quang Duy Vu is a native and citizen of Vietnam who has been in
immigration detention for over eight months. He has filed a petition for a writ of
habeas corpus, arguing that his prolonged detention is not lawful under the Supreme
Court’s decision in Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), because his removal to
Vietnam is not likely in the reasonably foreseeable future. For the reasons that follow,
the court agrees and Vu’s petition is GRANTED.
BACKGROUND
Although he was born in South Vietnam in 1974, Vu came to the United States in
around December 1990—when he was sixteen years old—“fle[eing] Vietnam after the
Vietnam War” for “supporting South Vietnam and the United States.” Dkt. No. 1, at
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PageID.3, 19. He eventually was granted “indefinite public interest parole.” Dkt. No.
12-1, at PageID.88.
His settlement in the United States was not initially smooth. While in his
twenties, Vu was convicted of grand theft, receiving known stolen property, burglary,
forgery, and solicitation to commit specified acts, all in California state court. Dkt. No.
12, at PageID.72. Those criminal legal troubles did not continue into older age, and for
the last quarter century, Vu—who is now months shy of fifty-two—has not been
convicted of any further crimes. Dkt. No. 1, at PageID.4, 6. Indeed, he has had success
here in Hawai‘i: as Vu reports, he is “lawfully employed in the restaurant business as
the owner and operator of Saito and Pho Restaurant in Honolulu with four (4)
locations.” Id. at PageID.6.
But while Vu has become a law-abiding member of the community, his legal
troubles have continued in at least one respect: he has lost his indefinite public interest
parole and thus does not have legal permission to remain in the United States. In
August 1999—as a result of his conviction for receipt of known stolen property—the
Immigration and Naturalization Services (“INS”) charged Vu as inadmissible owing to
his convictions for acts constituting the essential elements of a crime involving moral
turpitude. Dkt. No. 12-1, at PageID.88. Vu was arrested by INS on the inadmissibility
charge in October 1999 and detained. Id. His asylum claim was denied and he was
ordered removed to Vietnam in March 2000. Id.
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Vu was not, however, removed from the United States. Instead, in around June
2000, he was released from INS custody under an order of supervision because INS
determined that it could not obtain a travel document for him to return to Vietnam. Id.
In November 2008, Vu failed to report to the federal agency now charged with handling
immigration matters—U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”)—and he
was deemed an absconder. Id. at PageID.89. But when he was eventually arrested in
January 2014, he was released the same day with a new order of supervision. Id.
Vu remained at liberty in the United States until June 12, 2025, when ICE “re-
detained [Vu] to execute his removal order to Vietnam.” Id. Vu has not been removed,
though. Instead, for the more than eight months since his arrest, he has been in custody
at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu, Hawai‘i (the “FDC”). To effectuate his
removal, ICE “must acquire a travel document and schedule a flight” for Vu. Id. But to
date, ICE has done neither. Id. at PageID.89-90.
Against this backdrop, Vu filed his habeas petition on January 14, 2026, in which
he names the warden of the FDC, Shikha Dosanj, as well as three other government
officials. Dkt. Nos. 1, 7. For reasons that remain unclear, the petition was not
expeditiously served, and counsel for respondents did not notice an appearance until
February 4, 2026. Dkt. No. 10; see also Dkt. No. 6 (minutes of Jan. 21, 2026, status
conference in which court inquired into status of service). On February 5, 2026, the
court held a status conference at which the parties jointly waived the timing
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requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2243 and proposed a briefing schedule under which the
government would respond to the petition on February 17, 2026, and Vu would reply
by February 24, 2026. Dkt. No. 11. The court accepted the proposal and the parties
timely filed their briefs. Dkt. Nos. 12, 13. The parties then asked the court to resolve the
petition without holding any further hearing. Dkt. No. 15.
DISCUSSION
The great writ of habeas corpus safeguards the right of individuals in custody—
citizens and noncitizens alike—to test the legality of their detention under “the
Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3). Vu is in
immigration custody at the FDC and argues that his prolonged detention violates
federal law; the court unquestionably has jurisdiction over his petition. See Zadvydas,
533 U.S. at 688.
We turn, then, to the merits of Vu’s petition. As Vu recognizes, because he has
been arrested to effectuate an order of removal, a 90-day “removal period” applies,
under which he may lawfully be detained. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1231(a)(1) and (a)(2). That
period may be extended beyond the 90 days under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6), and the
language of the provision places no express limit on the length of further extensions.
But in Zadvydas, the Supreme Court rejected the notion that § 1231(a)(6) allows
“indefinite detention.” 533 U.S. at 689. Instead, adopting a limiting construction, the
Court held that § 1231(a)(6) allows detention of a noncitizen currently in the United
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States only “for a period reasonably necessary to bring about that [noncitizen’s]
removal from the United States.” Id. It follows that “once removal is no longer
reasonably foreseeable, continued detention is no longer authorized by statute.” Id. at
699.
The Zadvydas Court also provided guidance on how to apply this limiting
construction of the statute. A detention period of six months after a removal order is to
be treated as “presumptively reasonable.” Id. at 701. On the other side of six months,
however, if the noncitizen “provides good reason to believe that there is no significant
likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future,” then the government “must
respond with evidence sufficient to rebut that showing.” Id. The court must evaluate
each party’s burden flexibly and with sensitivity to the individualized circumstances of
a case. This means that, on the one hand, the noncitizen need not show “that
deportation will prove ‘impossible’”; that is, he need not show “the absence of any
prospect of removal—no matter how unlikely or unforeseeable.” Id. at 702 (citation
omitted). It also means that, on the other hand, the government might still meet its
burden of rebuttal even if there is no “‘extant or pending’ repatriation agreement,” as
the court must also consider “the likelihood of successful future negotiations.” Id.
(citation omitted).
Applying the Supreme Court’s guidance here, the court concludes that Vu has
met his burden. After he was initially arrested by INS in October 1999 and an order of
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removal was entered against him, Vu was not removed from the United States; instead,
he was released under an order of supervision because INS could not obtain a travel
document for his return to Vietnam. The same thing happened in January 2014 after Vu
was arrested for failing to report to ICE. And Vu offers a persuasive explanation for
why this has happened in the past: “Vietnam has historically been reluctant to accept
deportees, particularly individuals with criminal records.” Dkt. No. 1, at PageID.2.
What is more, Vu “entered the U.S. in 1990, placing him among Vietnamese nationals
whose repatriation has long been constrained under the U.S.-Vietnam repatriation
framework.” Id. These amount to at least “good reason to believe that there is no
significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.” 533 U.S. at 701.
And notably, in the face of comparable arguments from other similarly situated
Vietnamese nationals, other federal district courts have likewise found that petitioners
had met their burdens of proof. See, e.g., Truong v. Bondi, Case No. SA-25-CA-01947,
2026 WL 475296, at *4 (W.D. Tex. Feb. 11, 2026); Pham v. Scott, Case. No. 2:26-cv-00027,
2026 WL 238994, at *4-5 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 29, 2026); Dao v. Bondi, Case No. 2:25-cv-02340,
2026 WL 18626, at *4 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 2, 2026); Abubaka v. Bondi, Case No. C25-1889,
2025 WL 3204369, at *4 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 17, 2025); Nguyen v. Scott, 796 F. Supp. 3d 703,
721-23 (W.D. Wash. 2025).
That leaves the question of whether the government has offered sufficient
evidence to rebut Vu’s showing. Because the government is “not seeking” to remove
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Vu “to a third country,” Dkt. No. 12-1, at PageID.89, the question is whether the
government’s rebuttal evidence shows a “significant likelihood of removal” to Vietnam
“in the reasonably foreseeable future.” Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 701. The government’s
evidence on that issue amounts to eight paragraphs in a single ICE agent’s declaration.
Dkt. No. 12-1, at PageID.89-90. In those paragraphs, the agent affirms that ICE “has
worked expeditiously to effectuate” Vu’s removal to Vietnam and these “removal
efforts remain ongoing.” Id. at PageID.89. The agent represents that ICE’s Enforcement
and Removal Operations (“ERO”) “has submitted a travel document request packet to
ERO Removal and International Operations (‘RIO’) to obtain a travel document to
effectuate [Vu’s] removal to Vietnam.” Id. And the agent further represents that RIO
“has been actively engaging the Government of Vietnam in pursuit of a travel
document for Mr. Vu.” Id. at PageID.89-90.
This evidence shows a possibility that Vu will be repatriated—perhaps even a
possibility that he will be repatriated soon. But the question is not whether there is “any
prospect of removal—no matter how unlikely or foreseeable.” Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 702.
The question is whether there is a “significant likelihood” of that happening in the
“reasonably foreseeable future.” Id. at 701. The agent’s declaration does not make that
more particularized showing.
To be sure, the agent’s declaration also offers more generalized assertions about
the government’s recent success in repatriating Vietnamese citizens. The agent attests
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that “ICE routinely obtains travel documents for Vietnamese citizens, including those
who immigrated to the United States before 1995.” Dkt. No. 12-1, at PageID.90. The
agent further attests that “ICE routinely has flights to Vietnam, and ICE has removed
several Vietnamese citizens to Vietnam as recently as November 2025,” and that in
fiscal year 2025, “ICE has removed at least 587 Vietnamese citizens to Vietnam.” Id. But
these assertions do not materially strengthen the government’s showing. The
fundamental flaw is that they do not offer any indication of what percentage of the
government’s requests are successful, or what percentage of the total number of
attempted removals the 587 successful ones represent. If, for example, the government
routinely gets travel documents for 10 Vietnamese citizens each month after asking for
100, that ten percent success rate would not support the inference that travel documents
are substantially likely to arrive soon for Vu. In other words, it is the field goal
percentage, not just the total number of shots made, that matters here. And nothing in
the agent’s declaration answers that critical question.
Other courts have noted the same statistical deficiency in the government’s
rebuttal evidence. In Dao, for example, the district court in the Western District of
Washington observed that while the government had asserted that “at least 569 final
order Vietnamese citizens” received travel documents as of September 11, 2025, the
government had offered “no indication of the total number of detainees involved, or
how many individuals were not removed despite Respondents’ requests that Vietnam
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issue travel documents.” 2026 WL 18626, at *5. And in Nguyen v. Hyde, the district
court in the District of Massachusetts observed: “If DHS submitted 350 requests and
Vietnam issued travel documents for 328 individuals, Respondents may very well have
shown that removal is significantly likely in the reasonably foreseeable future. On the
other hand, if DHS submitted 3,500 requests and only 328 individuals received travel
documents, Respondents would not be able to meet their burden.” 788 F. Supp. 3d 144,
151 (D. Mass. 2025). As in those cases, the government’s rebuttal evidence does not
offer any clarification of its statistical success with Vietnam, and so falls short of
meeting the government’s burden.
And that means Vu’s continued detention is unlawful under § 1231(a)(6). The
court therefore will grant Vu’s habeas petition and order his immediate release. But it
does so with three qualifications. First, in addition to arguing that his continued
detention is unlawful under § 1231(a)(6), Vu makes other arguments in support of his
petition. See Dkt. No. 1, at PageID.35-36 (raising additional claims under the
Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution). Because they are not sufficiently
fleshed out in his briefing, the court declines to resolve those other arguments. Second,
because the court agrees that there is no reason to apply this order to any respondent
other than the warden of the FDC—at the least, Vu has not offered any argument to the
contrary—it GRANTS Respondents’ motion “to strike and to dismiss all respondents
other than Shikha Dosanj from this case.” Dkt. No. 12, at PageID.71 n.1. Third, the
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court DENIES as moot Vu’s motion to amend or correct his petition to delete certain
passages that are inaccurate, Dkt. No. 14, as those passages have no bearing on the
court’s ruling here.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the petition for writ of habeas corpus is GRANTED.
The court ORDERS Respondent Shikha Dosanj, the Warden of the FDC, to immediately
release Vu from detention under the conditions in his preexisting order of supervision.
The parties are ORDERED to file a joint status report by March 6, 2026, confirming that
Vu has been released. And any fee petition must be filed within the deadlines set by the
Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2412. See Daley v. Ceja, 158 F.4th 1152, 1162 (10th
Cir. 2025) (explaining that the Equal Access to Justice Act authorizes the award of
attorney’s fees to petitioners who prevail against the government in immigration habeas
actions).
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: March 3, 2026, at Honolulu, Hawai‘i.
Civil No. 26-00013 MWJS-RT; Quang Duy Vu v. Shikha Dosanj, et al.; ORDER
GRANTING PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
/s/ Micah W.J. Smith
Micah W.J. Smith
United States District Judge
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