946 F.3d 875
6th Cir.2020Background
- Plaintiff Usama Hamama filed a class action on behalf of over 1,000 Iraqi nationals who received final removal orders in 2017 and have been detained or face future detention by ICE.
- The district court certified subclasses and issued three preliminary injunctions; two were vacated by this Court in Hamama I, and the third (the subject of this appeal) ordered presumptive release after six months of detention for the primary subclass.
- The district court based the six-month rule on Zadvydas v. Davis, found that repatriation to Iraq was unlikely in the reasonably foreseeable future, and referenced the government’s litigation conduct in issuing relief.
- The government argued the district court lacked jurisdiction to issue class-wide injunctive relief under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1) (and related provisions) and appealed.
- The Sixth Circuit vacated the class-wide injunction again, holding the district court lacked jurisdiction to enter class-wide injunctive relief over the statutes at issue and that Zadvydas could not be transplanted onto mandatory/pre-removal detention statutes.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether the district court had jurisdiction to enter a class-wide preliminary injunction restraining §§1221–1232 | Hamama: the order was habeas relief (release), not an injunction, so §1252(f)(1) bar does not apply | Government: §1252(f)(1) strips courts of jurisdiction to enter class-wide injunctive relief restraining those statutes | Held: District court lacked jurisdiction; the order was a preliminary injunction and §1252(f)(1) precludes class-wide injunctive relief (vacated) |
| Whether the relief could be characterized as habeas corpus (including prospective relief for future detainees) | Hamama: order is consistent with habeas/Zadvydas and can prospectively protect detainees who will reach six months | Government: §2241 does not permit preliminary or purely prospective habeas relief and habeas applies only to those currently in custody | Held: Court treated it as a preliminary injunction; habeas characterization fails because relief was preliminary, prospective, and covered future detainees |
| Whether the district court could rely on sanctions/inherent powers (or Rule 37) to order release | Hamama: court could sanction the government for litigation misconduct by ordering release or adverse inference | Government: a court cannot nullify a clear congressional directive or bypass jurisdictional limits by using sanctions to impose class-wide relief | Held: Sanctions/inherent-powers argument fails; using an adverse inference/sanction cannot justify prohibited class-wide injunction under §1252(f)(1) |
| Whether Zadvydas’s six-month presumptive-release rule applies to §§1225(b), 1226(a), and 1226(c) | Hamama: Zadvydas’s constitutional-avoidance principle supports a six-month rule across detention statutes | Government: Jennings and Demore show these statutes differ materially (many are mandatory or have endpoints) and Zadvydas does not extend | Held: Zadvydas cannot be grafted onto mandatory or pre-removal detention statutes; Jennings forecloses the constitutional-avoidance reading that Ly v. Hansen relied on (Ly does not survive Jennings) |
Key Cases Cited
- Hamama v. Adducci, 912 F.3d 869 (6th Cir. 2018) (earlier opinion vacating two class-wide injunctions and framing jurisdictional bar)
- Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001) (establishes six-month presumptive rule for post-removal-order indefinite detention under §1231(a)(6))
- Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830 (2018) (limits application of Zadvydas-style avoidance to statutes that are ambiguous; emphasizes differences for mandatory/pre-removal detention statutes)
- Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510 (2003) (upholds detention during removal proceedings in certain circumstances and contrasts brief detention with Zadvydas’s indefinite-detention concern)
- Ly v. Hansen, 351 F.3d 263 (6th Cir. 2003) (previously extended Zadvydas reasoning to other detention statutes; court explains Jennings undermines Ly)
- Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U.S. 54 (1968) (discussed in concurrence regarding liberal construction of habeas and review of future confinement)