R.C. v. Samuel J. Olson
- Eric Tostrud
- 0:25-cv-03811
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 16
In Ramon R.C. v. Samuel J. Olson, et al., Magistrate Judge Leo I. Brisbois recommended that the court order immigration authorities to give Ramon R.C. — a Mexican citizen who has lived in the United States for more than twenty years — a bond hearing within seven days, ruling that he is subject to the discretionary detention law that allows bond hearings, not the mandatory detention law that does not.
Noncitizen individuals — particularly those who have lived in the United States for extended periods without authorization — who have been arrested by ICE, placed in immigration detention, and denied bond hearings on the theory that they are subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225 as 'applicants for admission.' Also relevant to immigration attorneys litigating bond hearing access and to the government agencies (ICE, DHS) defending these detention decisions.
What happened
In Ramon R.C. v. Samuel J. Olson, et al. (Case No. 25-cv-3811), Ramon R.C., a citizen of Mexico who entered the United States more than twenty years ago, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on August 2, 2025, and placed in detention at the Sherburne County Jail in Minnesota while removal proceedings were initiated against him. He asked for a bond hearing — a proceeding where a judge decides whether a detained person should be released while their immigration case is pending — but an immigration judge denied his request. The immigration judge concluded that Ramon R.C. was covered by a federal law called 8 U.S.C. § 1225, which applies to people 'seeking admission' into the United States and does not provide for bond hearings, rather than 8 U.S.C. § 1226, which applies to people already living in the country and does allow bond hearings.
Ramon R.C. filed a petition in federal court asking for a court order — known as a writ of habeas corpus, which is a legal tool used to challenge whether someone is being held in custody lawfully — requiring the government to give him a bond hearing under § 1226. The government argued that this court had no authority to hear his challenge and that § 1225 correctly applied to him because any person who entered the country without authorization is automatically deemed to be 'seeking admission.' Ramon R.C. countered that someone who has lived in the United States for over twenty years is not 'seeking admission' in any meaningful sense of those words, and that § 1226's bond-hearing rules should apply to him.
Magistrate Judge Leo I. Brisbois sided firmly with Ramon R.C. on both issues. The court held that it does have the authority to hear challenges to the legality of immigration detention, rejecting the government's argument to the contrary as inconsistent with longstanding Supreme Court precedent. On the main issue, the court found — joining what it described as an overwhelming majority of federal courts nationwide and every judge in the District of Minnesota to have addressed the question — that a person who has been living in the United States for more than two decades is not 'seeking admission' and therefore cannot be subjected to mandatory detention under § 1225. The court recommended granting the petition in part and ordering the government to provide Ramon R.C. with a bond hearing within seven days of any order adopting this recommendation. The court denied the request for his immediate release, finding he had not shown his detention was entirely unlawful — only that he was entitled to a bond hearing. The court also denied his request to be protected from transfer out of the district, finding that relief would be rendered meaningless by the timing of events. Because this is a magistrate judge's recommendation rather than a final order, either party may file written objections within 14 days, and a district court judge will make the final ruling.
The detailed version
CASE: Ramon R.C. v. Samuel J. Olson, et al., No. 25-cv-3811 (ECT/LIB), United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. DECISION-MAKER: United States Magistrate Judge Leo I. Brisbois (Report and Recommendation issued December 30, 2025).
PROCEDURAL POSTURE This is a Report and Recommendation — meaning it is a magistrate judge's proposed ruling referred to a district court judge for final adoption or rejection. Either party may file written objections within 14 days of service. The Report is not directly appealable to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND Petitioner Ramon R.C. is a citizen of Mexico who entered the United States without inspection (i.e., without going through an official entry point) either in 2001 or 2003 — the record is slightly inconsistent, but the court found the precise date immaterial. He has lived continuously in the United States since entry, is married to a U.S. citizen, and has a minor U.S. citizen daughter. On August 2, 2025, ICE officers arrested him in Burnsville, Minnesota. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiated removal proceedings and has detained him at the Sherburne County Jail pending those proceedings.
Upon arrest, Ramon R.C. was served with a Notice to Appear charging him as inadmissible under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) — being present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. He was later served with an additional charge of inadmissibility under § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I) for lacking valid documentation at the time of 'application for admission.'
Ramon R.C. requested a bond hearing (formally called a custody redetermination proceeding). The immigration judge denied his request, concluding that he was subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225 as an 'applicant for admission,' and that the immigration court therefore lacked jurisdiction to reconsider his bond determination under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(a). A motion to reconsider was also denied. Ramon R.C. appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA); that appeal remains pending. On October 15, 2025, Ramon R.C. was provisionally ordered removed to Mexico; he appealed that order to the BIA as well, and that appeal (which automatically stays execution of the removal order) also remains pending.
Ramon R.C. filed this federal habeas corpus petition on September 30, 2025. He also filed two motions for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and preliminary injunction. The amended petition and amended TRO/injunction motion are the operative filings.
LEGAL FRAMEWORK Two overlapping federal statutes govern immigration detention:
— 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a): Applies to noncitizens already present in the country and facing removal proceedings. Detention is discretionary. Federal regulations require that individuals detained under § 1226(a) receive bond hearings at the outset of detention. (§ 1226(c), not at issue here, mandates detention without bond for certain criminal offenders.)
— 8 U.S.C. § 1225: Applies to 'applicants for admission,' defined as any alien 'present in the United States who has not been admitted or who arrives in the United States.' Under § 1225, detention is mandatory and no bond hearings are provided. The BIA recently held, in Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I&N Dec. 216 (BIA 2025), that all individuals charged as inadmissible under § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) fall within § 1225's mandatory-detention regime.
ISSUE 1 — JURISDICTION Respondents argued that 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g) strips the district court of jurisdiction because that statute bars courts from hearing claims arising from the government's decision to 'commence proceedings, adjudicate cases, or execute removal orders.' The court flatly rejected this argument, citing Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 525 U.S. 471 (1999), in which the Supreme Court held that § 1252(g) covers only those three specific actions, not all immigration-related claims. The court held that Ramon R.C.'s challenge to the lawfulness of his detention is independent of and collateral to the removal process itself, not a challenge to the commencement of removal proceedings, and thus falls outside § 1252(g). The court also cited an Eighth Circuit exception to § 1252(g) for habeas claims raising pure questions of law. The court described Respondents' jurisdictional argument as contrary to 'long-standing and controlling Supreme Court precedent' and noted it has been 'soundly rejected by nearly every Court across the nation.'
ISSUE 2 — WHICH DETENTION STATUTE APPLIES The court held that Ramon R.C. is governed by § 1226(a), not § 1225. The analysis turned on whether a person who has lived in the United States for over twenty years is 'seeking admission' within the meaning of § 1225.
The court rejected the government's position and the BIA's ruling in Yajure Hurtado, noting that the BIA's interpretation departs from decades of consistent statutory interpretation and the plain text of § 1225(b)(2). Under Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), which eliminated the prior Chevron doctrine of deferring to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, the court found the BIA's recent ruling entitled to no deference, particularly because it is not a long-standing or consistent agency interpretation.
The court reasoned that 'seeking' is an active verb describing a present effort to obtain lawful entry into the United States. A person arrested while already living in the country for more than two decades is not actively and presently seeking admission — they are already present. The court quoted an analogy from Santos M.C. v. Olson: someone who enters a movie theater without buying a ticket and sits through part of a film would not be described as 'seeking admission'; they are already there.
The court noted that more than 300 federal court decisions nationwide have reached the same conclusion, and that every district judge in the District of Minnesota who has considered the issue has rejected the government's argument. The court cited decisions by Chief Judge Schilz and Judges Brasel, Menendez, Blackwell, Bryan, Provinzino, Tunheim, and Nelson, all from the District of Minnesota.
CONCLUSION ON MERITS Because Ramon R.C. is subject to § 1226(a), not § 1225, he is entitled to a bond hearing.
RELIEF ANALYSIS — Bond hearing: Recommended GRANTED. Respondents should be ordered to provide a bond hearing within 7 days of any order adopting the Report and Recommendation. — Immediate release: Recommended DENIED in part. Ramon R.C. argued only that the denial of a bond hearing was unlawful, not that his detention itself is per se illegal. The appropriate remedy is a bond hearing, not immediate release. — Transfer injunction (preventing transfer outside the District of Minnesota): Recommended DENIED in part. The court found insufficient factual specificity to support the claim that transfer would prevent access to counsel (e.g., no explanation why remote/telephonic access would be inadequate). More fundamentally, the court found the requested injunction superfluous: an order adopting this Report and Recommendation would simultaneously end these proceedings and the period during which the transfer ban would be in effect, rendering any such injunction of no practical effect. — Initial TRO/injunction motion (Docket No. 2): Recommended DENIED as moot, superseded by the amended filing. — Remainder of amended TRO/injunction motion: Recommended DENIED as moot.
NOTE ON PROCESS: This is a Report and Recommendation from a magistrate judge. It will become effective only if adopted by the assigned district court judge. Parties have 14 days to file written objections under Local Rule 72.2(b)(1).
Reviewer note from the AI+
Read the full 16-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.