Nestor Esai Mendoza Gutierrez v. Baltasar, et al.

The ACLU of Colorado filed a class action lawsuit in federal court seeking to declare that ICE and DHS’s new practice of denying release on bond to groups of noncitizens violates federal law.

Mr. Mendoza Gutierrez has been living and working in the Denver Metro area for over twenty-five years. He’s been detained since May, leaving his wife and two U.S.-citizen children without their main source of support. Mr. Mendoza Gutierrez has a pending application for a U-Visa, which is designed to encourage victims of crime (as well as parents of minor U.S.-citizen children who are victims of crime) to cooperate with law enforcement to ensure the safety of our communities. He is also a small business owner and prominent, founding member of his church. To end his detention in a private-prison facility known to have poor conditions, Mr. Mendoza Gutierrez filed an application for bond through his immigration lawyer. Previously, he likely would have been granted bond due to his strong ties to the community, fixed address, and lack of serious criminal convictions. But an immigration judge denied his request for bond based on a new interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which DHS, DOJ, and ICE now claim means he is “seeking admission” to the U.S. – despite living here for decades – and that he is subject to mandatory detention for the duration of his immigration case.

The ACLU of Colorado filed claims on September 2, 2025 seeking to declare this new interpretation of the INA being used by DHS and immigration judges in Colorado is illegal, and to require a bond hearing for Mr. Mendoza Gutierrez and people like him. For over 25 years, people who “entered without inspection,” but were not detained at the border, were given the opportunity to seek bond to show that they are not a danger to the community or a flight risk, since they had been living in the Unites States. But this newly adopted, unlawful interpretation prohibits bond in all cases where someone “entered without inspection” at any point – even if that occurred decades ago, on the theory that the person remains an “applicant for admission” who is “seeking admission” to the United States, and therefore ineligible for bond under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b). This is contrary to the plain language of the statutory detention/bond scheme laid out at 8 U.S.C. §§ 1225-1226, decades of agency interpretation, and even the agency’s own implementing regulations.

This dramatic change in agency practice would result in millions of additional people being subject to detention pending the outcome of their immigration case. In addition to avoiding the various harms caused by detention itself (loss of liberty, denial of medical care, and more), release on bond also increases a person’s chances of success in their immigration case because it becomes much easier to retain counsel, obtain witnesses and documents, etc. that support a noncitizen’s underlying claims for relief. Likewise, when faced with a lengthy detention, many detained noncitizens will opt for voluntary deportation rather than remaining in jail-like conditions, even when they have meritorious claims for relief in their immigration cases. The case filed by the ACLU of Colorado seeks a bond hearing for Mr. Mendoza Gutierrez, as well as seeking a declaration that the immigration judges in Colorado must conduct bond hearings for people similarly situated to Mr. Mendoza Gutierrez.

MEDIA:

“ICE Illegally Blocks Bail Hearings for Detained Immigrants in Aurora, Lawsuit Alleges,” The Denver Post, September 3, 2025