govinfo:USCOURTS-tnwd-2_26-cv-02512-0

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE 
WESTERN DIVISION 
______________________________________________________________________________ 
 
JOSE ROBERTO CASANOVA VIDAL, 
 
Petitioner, 
 
v. Case No. 2:26-cv-02512-BCL-tmp 
CHRISTOPHER BULLOCK, 
Field Office Director of U.S. Immigration 
and Customs Enforcement, New Orleans 
Field Office, 
 
Respondent. 
______________________________________________________________________________ 
 
 ORDER DENYING § 2241 PETITION 
______________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Petitioner Jose Roberto Casanova Vidal earlier filed a petition under 28 USC 2241 
challenging his detention without a bond hearing, which this Court denied in Case No. 2:26- cv 
02396-BCL-tmp. Petitioner has now filed a new habeas petition (Doc. 1), a Motion for Preliminary 
Injunction (Doc. 6), Motion for Temporary Restraining Order (Doc. 6), and Motion to Expedite 
(Doc. 7). For the reasons that follow, Petitioner’s Motions are DENIED. The Emergency Motion 
to Expedite Consideration of Habeas Petition and Pending Motion (Doc. 7) is DENIED AS 
MOOT. 
BACKGROUND 
Petitioner is a citizen of Peru who entered the United States in November of 2022. Doc. 1 
at 3. On January 12, 2023, Petitioner reported to the ICE Memphis Intensive Supervision 
Appearance Program (“ISAP”). Doc. 1 at 4. At that time, ICE issued a Notice to Appear (“NTA”) 
and released Petitioner on Alternatives to Detention (“ATD”) supervision. Id. The NTA charged 
Petitioner with being “an arriving alien” and “an immigrant who, at the time of application for PageID
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admission, is not in possession of a valid unexpired immigrant visa” and “a valid unexpired 
passport, or other suitable travel document.” Doc. 1-7 at 2, 5. 
On December 1, 2025, Petitioner voluntarily appeared at the Memphis office of 
Immigration after being summoned for allegedly failing to comply with conditions of the ATD 
program. Doc. 1 at 4. On that day, Petitioner was taken into custody. Id. Since that day, Petitioner 
has been detained at the West Tennessee Detention Facility in this District. Id . He now seeks 
release or an individualized bond hearing to which he claims to be entitled by law under 8 U.S.C. 
§ 1226(a). Id. at 12. 
LEGAL STANDARD 
Section 2241 authorizes a court to issue a writ of habeas corpus when an individual “is in 
custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. 
§ 2241(c)(3). An alien seeking to challenge her detention relating to r emoval proceedings may in 
some circumstances seek relief through a Section 2241 petition. See, e.g., Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 
U.S. 678, 687 (2001). 
Temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions are “extraordinary equitable 
remed[ies] that [are] never awarded as of right.” Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney, 602 U.S. 339, 345–
46 (2024) (quoting Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 24 (2008)). To obtain such 
relief, the movant must “make a clear showing that ‘he is likely to succeed on the merits, that he 
is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities 
tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest.’” Id. at 346 (quoting Winter, 555 
U.S. at 20). “Thus, ‘[t]he party seeking a preliminary injunction bears the burden of justifying such 
relief.’” A.C.L.U. Fund of Mich. v. Livingston Cnty., 796 F.3d 636, 642 (6th Cir. 2015) (quoting 
McNeilly v. Land, 684 F.3d 611, 615 (6th Cir. 2012)). “If the plaintiff fails to show a likelihood of PageID
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success on the merits, the court may deny [the motion for a temporary restraining order] without 
any further consideration.” U.S. Sportsmen’s All. Found. v. C trs. for Disease Control & 
Prevention, 167 F.4th 813, 818 (6th Cir. 2026) (citing Wilson v. Williams, 961 F.3d 829, 844 (6th 
Cir. 2020)). 
ANALYSIS 
A. Like many recent cases, the statutory claim in this case turns on whether 
Petitioner’s detention is governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) or 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a). Section 
1226(a) provides that an “alien may be arrested and detained pending a decision on whether the 
alien is to be removed from the United States,” but that the alien “may” be “release[d] on bond” 
or “conditional parole.” 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a)(1)–(2). The other provision, Section 1225(b)(2)(A), 
provides for mandatory detention: 
Subject to subparagraphs (B) and (C), in the case of an alien who is an applicant 
for admission, if the examining immigration officer determines that an alien 
seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, the 
alien shall be detained for a proceeding under section 1229a of this title. 
8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A). Section 1225(a)(1) further instructs: 
An alien present in the United States who has not been admitted or who arrives in 
the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an 
alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in 
international or United States waters) shall be deemed for purposes of this chapter 
an applicant for admission. 
8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(1). 
Section 1225(b)(2)(A)’s mandatory detention provision controls. The Court is not writing 
on a blank slate: The Sixth Circuit recently addressed the meaning of Section 1225(b)(2)(A), and 
its interplay with Section 1226(a), in Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft, 175 F.4th 713 (6th Cir. 2026). In 
Lopez-Campos, the Sixth Circuit held that, despite the broad language of Section 1225(b)(2)(A), 
Section 1226(a)’s permissive detention provision applies to an alien “detained within the interior PageID
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of the United States who never affirmatively applied for admission” (as contrasted with merely 
opposing removal). Id. at 721. The Sixth Circuit reasoned that “[n]oncitizens . . . who did not 
attempt lawful entry into the United States and are actively avoiding being inspected for lawful 
entry[ ] are not ‘seeking admission’” under Section 1225. Id. at 723. The undersigned reached the 
opposite conclusion in a string of decisions arising in similar contexts, but the Court must and will 
faithfully follow the de cisions of the Sixth Circuit unless and until they are overruled, because 
“vertical stare decisis is absolute.” Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83, 124 n.5 (2020) (Kavanaugh, 
J., concurring in part). 
 Applying the holding of Lopez-Campos here, Petitioner is subject to mandatory detention 
under Section 1225(b)(2)(A). While Petitioner was eventually detained in the interior of the nation, 
his initial encounter with United States officials came when he first crossed into the United 
States—that is, when he “arrive[d] in the United States,” as reflected in his immigration file 
deeming him an “arriving alien.” 8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(1). And as Petitioner acknowledges, he 
applied for admission and the immigration officer determined he was “not clearly and beyond a 
doubt entitled to be admitted.” 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) ; see Doc. 1-7 at 5. Petitioner thus is an 
“applicant for admission” subject to mandatory detention. The passage of time does nothing to 
change that: Petitioner has not withdrawn his application for admission and conceded 
removability; he is still actively seeking admission and in fact has filed a new application, this time 
for asylum. Doc. 1 at 5. Nor does it matter that Petitioner was “paroled into the United States”: 
Petitioner acknowledges that parole is not admission, and it therefore does not turn an “applicant 
for admission” who is “seeking admission” into something else. Doc. 14 at 2. Indeed, the very 
statute Petitioner cites confirms not only that parole is not admission but also that it does not 
permanently displace the other governing provisions, including Section 1225(b)(2)(A): PageID
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[S]uch parole of such alien shall not be regarded as an admission of the alien and 
when the purposes of such parole shall, in the opinion of the Secretary of Homeland 
Security, have been served the alien shall forthwith return or be returned to the 
custody from which he was paroled and shall thereafter continue to be dealt with in 
the same manner as that of any other applicant for admission to the United States. 
8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A). Indeed, the very fact of parole confirms that Petitioner is an “applicant 
for admission” as defined in the statute, as the cited parole provision applies only to aliens applying 
for admission. Id. 
Petitioner thus falls without Lopez -Campos’s definition of Section 1226(a) and within 
Section 1225(a)(1)’s definition of “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention under 
Section 1225(b)(2)(A). 
B. Petitioner also reprises the constitutional argument from his earlier petition —i.e., 
that the revocation of his parole and the resulting detention (now longer due to the passage of time) 
without a bond hearing violates due process. Doc. 1 at 9- 10. Here again, the Court is bound to 
faithfully adhere to Lopez -Campos, where (in the context of addressing detention deemed to fall 
under Section 1226(a)) the Sixth Circuit held that: (1) despite Dep’t of Homeland Security v. 
Thuraissigiam, 591 U.S. 103 (2020), the entry fiction “does not control” when an alien has “resided 
within the United States for years,” and (2) “the Due Process Clause requires an individualized 
bond hearing” where “immigration detention becomes needlessly prolonged and appears no longer 
to effectuate the regulatory goals of civil immigration detention.” Lopez -Campos, 175 F.4th at 
732–33. Accepting those holdings, Petitioner still has not shown a violation of due process. The 
Sixth Circuit in Lopez -Campos explicitly held that the calculus is different where — as here—
Congress has specifically called for mandatory detention. See Lopez -Campos, 175 F.4t h at 734 
(“Demore [v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510 (2003)] . . . concluded that mandatory detention under Section 
1226(c) without an initial individualized bond determination did not violate a noncitizen’s 
procedural due process rights.”). And even if the Due Process Clause did impose a time limit on PageID
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detention without a bond hearing pursuant to a mandatory detention statute, Petitioner has not 
identified any binding authority establishing, or even made any argument supporting the 
proposition that his less than roughly six months’ detention, while immigration proceedings remain 
ongoing, would fall on the unconstitutional side of the line. See McPherson v. Kelsey, 125 F.3d 
989, 995–96 (6th Cir. 1997) (“Issues adverted to in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some 
effort at developed argumentation, are deemed waived.”); cf. Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 701 (in context 
of statute allowing discretionary detention pending removal, holding as matter of constitutional 
avoidance that six months’ detention is presumptively unreasonable if there appears to be no 
likelihood alien will actually be removed). Absent argument and authority supporting that 
surprising result, this Court has no authority to impose it on the political branches. Petitioner’s 
constitutional argument therefore fails as well. 
CONCLUSION 
For the foregoing reasons, the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Doc. 1) , Motion for 
Preliminary Injunction (Doc. 6), Motion for Temporary Restraining Order (Doc. 6), and Motion 
to Expedite (Doc. 7) are DENIED. The Clerk is DIRECTED TO CLOSE THIS CASE. 
IT IS SO ORDERED, this 18
th day of June, 2026. 
s/ Brian C. Lea 
 BRIAN C. LEA 
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE PageID
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