Holguin Beltran v. Holder Jr.

Filing 25

ORDER granting 23 Respondent's Motion to Amend Judgment. The Final Judgment entered on January 23, 2014 is VACATED with regard to the Order requiring ICE to provide Mr. Beltran with an individualized bond hearing pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a)(2) within 14 days of entry of the January 16, 2014 Order. It is FURTHER ORDERED that the Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 ECF No. 1 is DISMISSED without prejudice and the Final Judgment shall be amended accordingly. It is FURTHER ORDERED that the Motion to Stay Proceedings to Enforce Judgment ECF No. 24 , filed on January 27, 2014, is DENIED as unnecessary, by Judge William J. Martinez on 1/29/2014.(evana, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORAD0
Judge William J. Martínez
Civil Action No. 13-cv-03067-WJM
JESUS ANTONIO HOLGUIN BELTRAN,
Applicant,
v.
ERICK HOLDER, JR., United States Attorney General,
JOHN KERRY, [Secretary of State],
JOHN SUTHERS, Attorney General of the State of Colorado,
JOHN LONGSHORE, Field Office Director of ICE,
CHOATE, Warden of the ICE Processing Center,
JOHN MORTON, Director of ICE in Washington, D.C., and
CORINA E. ALMEIDA, Chief Counsel for ICE
Respondents.

ORDER GRANTING RESPONDENTS’ MOTION TO AMEND JUDGMENT

The matters before the Court are Respondent[s’] Motion to Amend Judgment
(ECF No. 23) and Motion to Stay Proceedings to Enforce Judgment (ECF No. 24), both
filed on January 27, 2014. For the reasons discussed below, the Court will GRANT
Respondents’ Motion to Amend Judgment.
I. Procedural Background
Mr. Holgiun Beltran filed an Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 2241 (ECF No. 1). In the Application, he claimed, inter alia, that he is not
subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c). For relief, Applicant
requested an individualized bond hearing before an Immigration Judge pursuant to
8 U.S.C. § 1226(a). (ECF No. 1, at 5). On January 16, 2014, this Court entered an

Order granting the Application, in part.1 Specifically, the Court ordered Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide Mr. Holguin Beltran with an individualized bond
hearing pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a)(2) within 14 days of the date of entry of the
Order. (ECF No. 21).2 Final Judgment was entered on January 23, 2014. (ECF No.
22).
On January 27, 2014, Respondents filed a Motion to Amend Judgment, pursuant
to Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e), in which they ask the Court to (1) vacate the section of the
Judgment that requires ICE to provide Applicant with an individualized bond hearing
pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a)(2) within 14 days of the Order’s date; and (2) dismiss
the Application in its entirety. Respondents argue that Mr. Holguin Beltran’s challenge
to his detention without bond under § 1226 is now moot because on January 15, 2014,
the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissed Applicant’s appeal of the
Immigration Judge’s August 27, 2013 order of removal. (See ECF No. 23-1; ECF No.
18-3, at ¶ 9). Respondents maintain that the BIA’s decision constitutes a final order of
removal that shifted the statutory basis for Applicant’s detention from § 1226 to
§ 1231(a)(2).
Respondents contend that the BIA’s January 15, 2014 decision constitutes “new,
previously unavailable evidence” that was made available to Respondents’ counsel on
January 17, 2014. (ECF No. 23, at 2). Counsel for Respondents represents that she
was in the process of drafting a Notice of Immigration Court Action and Supplemental
1

The Court denied the Application with regard to Mr. Holguin Beltran’s requests that the Court
declare or clarify his status as a United States national; and, enter an order preventing ICE from
transferring him outside the District of Colorado.
2

The January 16, 2014 Order was not docketed until January 21, 2014.

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Response to Order to Show Cause when the Court issued its January 16, 2014 Order,
which Respondents received on January 21, 2014.
II. Legal Standards
A. Motion for to Amend Judgment
The Motion to Amend Judgment was filed pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e).
“Grounds warranting a motion to reconsider [under Rule 59(e)] include (1) an
intervening change in the controlling law, (2) new evidence previously unavailable, and
(3) the need to correct clear error or prevent manifest injustice.” Servants of Paraclete v.
Does, 204 F.3d 1005, 1012 (10th Cir. 2000) (citing Brumark Corp.v. Samson Resources
Corp., 57 F.3d 941, 948 (10th Cir. 1995)).
B. Habeas Relief
An application for habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 may only be
granted if the Applicant “is in custody in violation of the Constitution, or laws or treaties
of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3).
C. Mootness
Under Article III of the Constitution, federal courts may only adjudicate live
controversies. See U.S. Const. Art. III, § 2, cl. 1; Alvarez v. Smith, 558 U.S. 87, 130
S.Ct. 576, 580 (2009). An “actual controversy must be extant at all stages of review,
not merely at the time the complaint is filed.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted); see also Jordan v. Sosa, 654 F.3d 1012, 1023 (10th Cir. 2011) (“The
mootness doctrine provides that although there may be an actual and justiciable
controversy at the time the litigation is commenced, once that controversy ceases to

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exist, the federal court must dismiss the action for want of jurisdiction.”) (citation
omitted). If circumstances change during the pendency of the case that extinguish a
party’s legally cognizable interest in the action, the case is moot. Green v. Haskell Cnty.
Bd. of Comm’rs, 568 F.3d 784, 794 (10th Cir. 2009) (quotations omitted); see also
Church of Scientology v. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12 (1992) (recognizing that a case
becomes moot if an event occurs during the pendency of the action that “makes it
impossible for the court to grant any effectual relief whatever to a prevailing party.”).
III. Analysis
Under 8 U.S.C. § 1226, the Attorney General may arrest and detain an alien
pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States (“the
pre-removal period). After entry of a final removal order and during the 90-day removal
period,3 the Attorney General’s authority to detain an alien arises under 8 U.S.C.
§ 1231(a)(2). See Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 683 (2001); see also MoralesFernandez v. I.N.S., 418 F.3d 1116, 1123 (10th Cir. 2005).
The removal period for Mr. Holguin Beltran commenced on January 15, 2014,
when the BIA affirmed the Immigration Judge’s order of removal and the order became
administratively final. See 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(1)(B)(i); 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(47)(B). On
that date, the Attorney General’s authority to detain Applicant shifted to 8 U.S.C.
§ 1231(a)(2), thereby rendering moot Applicant’s claim challenging his detention under
8 U.S.C. § 1226. See Aguina-Arreola v. Eric Holder Jr., No. 13-cv-02942-RM, 2014 WL

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See 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(1) (stating that “when an alien is ordered removed, the Attorney General
shall remove the alien from the United States within a period of 90 days (in this section referred to as the
“removal period”).

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128559, at *2 (D. Colo. Jan. 10, 2014) (“On [the date the removal order became
administratively final], the Attorney General’s authority to detain Applicant shifted to 8
U.S.C. § 1231(a)(2), thereby rendering moot Applicant’s claim challenging his detention
under 8 U.S.C. § 1226.”); Gomez-Hermosillo v. Holder, No. 13-cv-02865-CMA, 2013
WL 6690002, at *2 (D. Colo. Dec. 19, 2013) (same); Novitskiy v. Holm, No. 12-cv00965-MSK, 2013 WL 229577, at *4 (D. Colo. Jan. 22, 2013) (same).4
At this time, there is no remedy the Court could issue concerning the legality of
Mr. Holguin Beltran’s past detention under § 1226. See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1,
18 (1998) (“But mootness, however it may have come about, simply deprives us of our
power to act; there is nothing for us to remedy, even if we were disposed to do so. We
are not in the business of pronouncing that past actions which have no demonstrable
continuing effect were right or wrong.”). Accordingly, Mr. Holguin Beltran’s claim
challenging his detention without a bond hearing under 8 U.S.C. § 1226 is moot. None
of the exceptions to the mootness doctrine are applicable here.5

4

See also De la Teja v. United States, 321 F.3d 1357, 1364 (11th Cir. 2003) (alien’s habeas
petition challenging detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226 is moot when removal period starts and detention
authority shifts to 8 U.S.C. § 1231); Ufele v. Holder, No. 11-1648, 473 F. App’x 144, 146 (3rd Cir. March
30, 2012) (unpublished) (stating that when BIA's order became administratively final, petitioner’s detention
switched from § 1226 to § 1231, thereby rendering moot his claim challenging the lawfulness of his
detention under § 1226); Oyelude v. Chertoff, No. 05-10916, 2006 WL 678670, at *1 (5th Cir. Mar. 16,
2006) (unpublished) (“Oyelude’s challenge to his § 1226 detention was mooted on June 23, 2004 when
his final removal order was entered and the Attorney General’s authority to detain him shifted to § 1231
. . . .”).
5

See Riley v. INS, 310 F.3d 1253, 1257 (10th Cir. 2002) (cautioning that a federal court should
not dismiss a petition as moot if “(1) secondary or ‘collateral’ injuries survive after resolution of the primary
injury; (2) the issue is deemed a wrong capable of repetition yet evading review; (3) the defendant
voluntarily ceases an allegedly illegal practice but is free to resume it at any time; or (4) it is a properly
certified class action suit).

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Further, any challenge to the legality of Applicant’s detention under § 1231(a)(2)
is premature because the removal period has not expired. See 8 U.S.C. §1231(a)(2)
(directing that the Attorney General “shall detain the alien” during the ninety-day
removal period); see also Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 701 (holding that detention under
§ 1231(a) lasting six months or less is presumptively reasonable and does not offend
the Constitution).
IV. Orders
For the reasons discussed above, it is
ORDERED that Respondent[s’] Motion to Amend Judgment (ECF No. 23), filed
on January 27, 2014, is GRANTED. The Final Judgment entered on January 23, 2014
is VACATED with regard to the Order requiring ICE to provide Mr. Beltran with an
individualized bond hearing pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a)(2) within 14 days of entry of
the January 16, 2014 Order. It is
FURTHER ORDERED that the Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (ECF No. 1) is DISMISSED without prejudice and the Final
Judgment shall be amended accordingly. It is
FURTHER ORDERED that the Motion to Stay Proceedings to Enforce Judgment
(ECF No. 24), filed on January 27, 2014, is DENIED as unnecessary.

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Dated this 29th day of January, 2014.
BY THE COURT:

__________________________
William J. Martínez
United States District Judge

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