(HC) Riego v. Current or Acting Field Office Director, San Francisco Field Office, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( 2024 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 VENANCIO ESTEBAN RIEGO, Case No. 1:24-cv-01162-SKO-HC 12 Petitioner, ORDER GRANTING PETITIONER’S MOTION TO AMEND TO NAME A 13 v. PROPER RESPONDENT [Doc. 14] 14 MINGA WOFFORD, ORDER SUBSTITUTING MINGA 15 Respondent. WOFFORD AS RESPONDENT 16 17 Petitioner is a non-citizen detainee proceeding pro se with a petition for writ of habeas 18 corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. He filed the instant petition on March 25, 2024. Upon 19 review of the petition, the Court found Petitioner had failed to name a proper respondent. Thus, 20 on October 3, 2024, the Court granted Petitioner leave to amend the respondent to avoid 21 dismissal of the action. (Doc. 12.) On October 24, 2024, Petitioner filed a motion to amend the 22 respondent. (Doc. 14.) 23 DISCUSSION 24 A petitioner seeking habeas corpus relief must name the officer having custody of him as 25 the respondent to the petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2242; Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 430 26 (2004); Ortiz-Sandoval v. Gomez, 81 F.3d 891, 894 (9th Cir. 1996). As explained by the 27 Supreme Court in Padilla, the proper respondent in habeas cases “is the warden of the facility 1 official.” Padilla, 542 U.S. at 435. 2 Petitioner is being detained at Golden State Annex (“GSA”) located in McFarland, 3 California. Petitioner seeks to amend his petition to name Minga Wofford, the administrator at 4 GSA, as the respondent in this matter. Because Ms. Wofford has direct custody of Petitioner, 5 she is a proper respondent. Padilla, 542 U.S. at 440 (“the immediate custodian, not a 6 supervisory official who exercises legal control, is the proper respondent”). 7 ORDER 8 Accordingly, Petitioner’s motion to amend the petition is GRANTED, and Minga 9 Wofford is SUBSTITUTED as Respondent in this matter. 10 IT IS SO ORDERED. 11 12 Dated: October 27, 2024 /s/ Sheila K. Oberto . UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27