Garcia-Garcia v. Dallessandri , 66 F. App'x 155 ( 2003 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
APR 21 2003
TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
LUIS GARCIA-GARCIA;
ALEJANDRO REYES MONDRAGON;
RAFAEL ARAGON-GONZALES, et al.
and the class of similarly situated aliens,
Petitioners - Appellants,
v.
MICHAEL COMFORT, District
Director, Immigration and No. 02-1057
Naturalization Service; MICHAEL (D.C. No. 01-Z-1498)
GARCIA, Acting Commissioner, (D. Colo.)
Immigration and Naturalization Service;
JOHN ASHCROFT, Attorney General
of the United States; THOMAS
DALESSANDRI, Sheriff of Garfield
County; JUDGE THOMAS W.
OSSOLA; JUDGE T. PETER CRAVEN;
JUDGE J.E. DEVILBLISS,
Respondents - Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before EBEL, HENRY and HARTZ, Circuit Judges.
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f) and 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). This Order and
Judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case,
res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of
orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the
terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
Petitioners Luis Garcia-Garcia, Alejandro Reyes-Mondragon, and Rafael
Aragon-Gonzales filed a petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, which
permits challenges to conditions of federal custody. They brought suit against
three Colorado state court judges, the Sheriff of Garfield County, Colorado, the
District Director of the INS, the Commissioner of the INS, and the Attorney
General of the United States. Petitioners had previously agreed in open court to
dismiss the three state court judges and the Sheriff of Garfield County from the
case. 1
The district court dismissed petitioners’ filings for habeas relief under
§ 2241 because (1) none of the petitioners were in federal custody when the
petitions were filed, and (2) the petitions became moot upon their release from
custody after posting state and federal bail. In addition, it dismissed the Sheriff
of Garfield County and the state court judges from the case as per the parties’
prior agreement. We agree with the district court that Garcia-Garcia, Reyes-
Mondragon, and Aragon-Gonzales were not in federal custody when their
petitions were filed, and so need not reach the issue of mootness. We also affirm
The Sheriff of Garfield County also filed two motions to dismiss
1
petitioners’ instant appeal for failure to file in a timely way, but we do not find
that this has prejudiced his ability to respond and will therefore deny the motions.
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the district court’s order dismissing the Sheriff of Garfield County and the judges
from the suit.
Garcia-Garcia, Reyes-Mondragon, and Aragon-Gonzales are citizens of
Mexico who entered the United States illegally and were arrested separately for
state crimes in Colorado. They all were held in the Garfield County, Colorado
jail. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) informed the Garfield
County jail that it had initiated an investigation into their presence in the country
and filed a detainer requesting custody whenever petitioners were released from
the Colorado system. The detainer filed by the INS was for notification purposes
only and requested that the state not limit its “discretion in any decision affecting
the offenders’ classification, work and quarters assignment.” (INS Detainer,
ROA App. 25.) The detainer thus was in no way to affect the length of time the
petitioners spent in state custody or the terms under which they were held; rather
it expressed the INS’s desire to obtain custody when they were released by the
state and requested notice of when that would happen. (See id.)
Petitioners allege, nonetheless, that their prosecution files were stamped
with “INS Hold, not subject to bail” by state authorities and obliquely suggest
without elaboration or citation that this stamp may have contributed to or
prolonged their state detention. The record, though, contradicts this version of
events. The petitioners filed their § 2241 petitions for habeas relief while being
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held at the Garfield County jail. At an initial hearing on their § 2241 petitions,
the district court corrected any possible misimpression that a federal detainer
might impact a state’s process of determining bail. The judge informed the
petitioners that they were entitled to request bail from state and then federal
authorities. The petitioners subsequently posted bail in the state courts, were
surrendered to the INS, and posted bail again in federal proceedings. As of their
next appearance in federal court, the petitioners were free on their own
recognizance.
In reviewing this appeal, we initially note that, once the petitioners agreed
to dismiss the three state court judges and the Sheriff of Garfield County from the
suit, the only remaining parties were federal and there are no particulars alleged
that the federal government caused any of the alleged injuries to the petitioners.
The federal government did not stamp the petitioners’ state prosecution files or
itself unlawfully hold the petitioners in detention. The petitioners’ allegations do
not support a suit against the federal government. See Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (finding that, to establish standing, “there
must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of –
the injury has to be ‘fairly ... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant,
and not ... th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before
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the court.’”) (citation omitted). We could dismiss the petitioners’ suit for lack of
standing on this ground alone but will address another issue as well. See id.Petitioners must be in federal custody at the time of filing to be granted
habeas relief under § 2241. Maleng v. Cook, 490 U.S. 488 (1989); 28 U.S.C. §
2241. It is uncontested from the record that petitioners were in the Garfield
County, Colorado jail when they filed their § 2241 petitions.
Garcia-Garcia, Reyes-Mondragon, and Aragon-Gonzales proffer two
arguments why their presence in the Garfield County jail should be considered
federal custody. First, they assert that the presence of the INS detainer should
alter the classification of their custody from state to federal. We have squarely
rejected this argument in the past. As we wrote in Galaviz-Medina v. Wooten, 27
F.3d 487, 493 (10th Cir. 1994), with a detainer “there is no actual claim to the
alien following the completion of his [contact with the state system], [so there can
be] no custody [for purposes of § 2241].” 2 Id. at 493 (citing Prieto v. Gluch, 913
F.2d 1159, 1162-64 (6th Cir. 1990), Orozco v. INS, 911 F.2d 539, 541 (11th Cir.
1990), and Campillo v. Sullivan, 853 F.2d 593, 595 (8th Cir. 1988)). A federal
INS detainer without an order of deportation has no impact on the length of time
2
Galaviz-Medina did acknowledge that if there were a final order of
deportation in conjunction with the detainer that the detainee might be viewed as
being held in federal custody. Galaviz-Medina, 27 F.3d at 493. However, in this
case there is no allegation that the INS had obtained a final order of deportation
against the petitioners during the pendency of the detainer.
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or the terms under which a state holds individuals, so it cannot transform
petitioners’ custody in local jail from state to federal. See generally id.Second, petitioners attempt to establish that they were in federal custody by
reference to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c), the statute that governs INS detention of aliens.
But that statute is inapplicable to their case. Title 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c) mandates
that the Attorney General take certain illegal aliens into custody. 3 Being taken
into custody by the INS usually means detention in an INS facility or in a non-
Service facility approved by its Jail Inspection Program or under contract with the
INS. 4 At the time petitioners filed under § 2241, they were being held in Garfield
County, Colorado jail and they make no representation that the facility had been
approved by the INS’s Jail Inspection Program or was under contract with the INS
to hold them. They also cite no law or source establishing a facility’s relationship
with the INS outside of these provisions.
Accordingly, petitioners cannot establish that they were in federal custody
as necessary to be granted relief under § 2241. We DENY the Sheriff’s
3
See 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c)(1) (“[The] Attorney General [of the United
States] shall take into custody any alien who . . . [is deportable.]”).
4
See, e.g., Immigration and Naturalization Service Regulations, 8 C.F.R. §
235.3(e) (2002) (“Whenever an alien is taken into Service custody and detained at
a facility other than at a Service Processing Center, the public or private entities
contracted to perform such service shall have been approved for such use by the
Service's Jail Inspection Program or shall be performing such service under
contract in compliance with the Standard Statement of Work for Contract
Detention Facilities.”).
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procedural motions to dismiss this appeal. For substantially the reasons stated by
the district court, we AFFIRM its denial of Garcia-Garcia, Reyes-Mondragon, and
Aragon-Gonzales’s petitions for relief under § 2241. We also AFFIRM the
district court’s order dismissing the Sheriff of Garfield County and the state court
judges from the suit as per the parties’ prior agreement.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
David M. Ebel
Circuit Judge
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