The Ninth Circuit has affirmed a district court's denial of the government's motion to dismiss a long-running class action brought by asylum seekers subject to mandatory detention under the expedited removal statute, holding on interlocutory appeal that the court has jurisdiction over the class's constitutional challenge and that Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam does not eliminate their due process rights. The certified class consists of noncitizens who entered without inspection, were placed in expedited removal, and established credible fear of persecution or torture, but who remain subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(B)(ii) without any opportunity for a bond hearing — a population DHS substantially expanded in January 2025 by designating virtually any inadmissible noncitizen apprehended anywhere in the country within two years of entry as subject to expedited removal.
On jurisdiction, the panel held that none of the four subsections of 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(A) barred the district court from hearing the case, since the class challenged the constitutionality of the detention statute itself rather than any individual removal order, determination, or application of the statute to a particular case. On the merits of appealability, the court rejected the government's argument that Thuraissigiam forecloses the claim entirely. Writing for the majority, Judge Berzon distinguished Thuraissigiam, which involved a noncitizen apprehended 25 yards from the border moments after crossing, as limited to individuals at the "threshold of initial entry." The class here includes people apprehended tens or hundreds of miles from the border, months or up to two years after entry — well outside that narrow category. The court reaffirmed the longstanding rule that the Due Process Clause protects all persons in the United States regardless of immigration status and traced the distinction between the government's broad power over admission decisions and the much more constrained, centuries-old limits on its power to detain. Judge Friedland concurred in the judgment on the narrower ground that the class definition alone placed its members outside Thuraissigiam's scope, without reaching the admission-versus-detention analysis.
The full text of Padilla v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can be found here: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/09/21/24-2801.pdf