Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

RAMON LOPEZ MARTINEZ, Case No. 5:26-cv-3619-MRA (SK)

Petitioner, ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE AND

v. GRANTING PETITIONER

LEAVE TO FILE FIRST

SENIOR WARDEN, et al., AMENDED PETITION

Respondents.

When Petitioner Ramon Lopez Martinez constructively filed his 28 U.S.C.

§ 2241 petition on June 22, 2026, one of his primary claims was that he had not

received a bond hearing since his arrest sometime in October 2025. However, as

revealed for the first time in petitioner’s traverse, he requested—and received—a

custody redetermination hearing before an immigration judge the next month on

July 9, 2026. At that bond hearing, he was ordered detained based on flight risk

and danger to the community—with the latter finding evidently supported by

petitioner’s criminal history. Petitioner now alleges—in his traverse only—that the

immigration judge incorrectly found him a flight risk and a danger. Meanwhile, on

July 13, 2026, a different immigration judge denied petitioner’s applications for

asylum and withholding of removal—and ordered him removed to Mexico.

Petitioner appealed that removal order the same day to the Board of Immigration

Appeals (BIA). At the same time, though, petitioner now adds a claim—again

only in his traverse—that he is being indefinitely detained because of the time it

will take the BIA to decide his appeal of the removal order.

A petitioner’s traverse “is not the proper pleading to raise additional grounds

for relief.” Cacoperdo v. Demosthenes, 37 F.3d 504, 507 (9th Cir. 1994). “In

order for the [government] to be properly advised of additional claims, they should

be presented in an amended petition.” Id. That rule not only protects respondents’

right to answer new claims, it also prevents the court from adjudicating theories

that have never been tested through adversarial briefing. See Clark v. Sweeney,

607 U.S. 7, 9 (2025). At the same time, the claims in the original petition are all

based on events preceding the July 9, 2026 bond hearing. Thus, the immigration

judge’s superseding detention order here—not any of the initial circumstances

around petitioner’s arrest and initial detention—is the operative agency action

keeping petitioner “in custody” for § 2241 purposes. So even if there were

anything unlawful about petitioner’s initial arrest and detention, “they are not

appropriately raised in a habeas petition, which considers the lawfulness of a

continuing detention.” L-J-P-L- v. Wamsley, 2025 WL 2430268, at *6 & n.3 (D.

Or. Aug. 22, 2025); see Streeter v. Craven, 418 F.2d 273, 274 (9th Cir. 1969)

(“[D]efects in an arrest are not cognizable in habeas corpus.”). So under the

original petition, “habeas relief is unavailable because his claims [there] have been

mooted by a subsequent, unchallenged basis for detention.” Thiravong v. Scott,

2026 WL 1382356, at *2 (W.D. Wash. May 18, 2026).

* * *

For all these reasons, petitioner is ORDERED TO SHOW CAUSE in

writing within 14 days of receiving this order why the original petition should not

be dismissed because none of its claims, on their face, can provide a basis for

habeas relief given the immigration judge’s post-petition order denying bond. If,

however, petitioner now wants to challenge his present custody based on the

immigration judge’s July 2026 detention order, he is GRANTED LEAVE to file a

first amended petition to that effect. That is not to suggest, however, that any such

first amended petition would succeed on the merits; it is to say only that without an

amended petition, there are no actionable habeas claims currently before this court.

If petitioner files a timely first amended petition, respondents shall have

seven days from when that amended petition is entered on the docket to file their

answer. Petitioner shall then have ten days from receipt of respondents’ answer to

file an optional reply. Upon the filing (or the expiration of the time for filing) of

that reply, this matter will be submitted for decision without oral argument.

Meanwhile, if petitioner files no first amended petition or other written

response to this order by the show-cause deadline, this action may be

involuntarily dismissed—with no further warning or notice—for lack of

prosecution and noncompliance with court orders. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(b);

L.R. 41-1.

Finally, if petitioner wants expedited consideration of his petition, he may

also a file a notice of his consent to magistrate judge jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §

636(c) and General Order 26-05. There are no adverse substantive consequences

for declining consent; it just means that the resolution of the petition must proceed

through a two-step process: first, a report and recommendation to the district judge;

and second, a period for any party to lodge objections (and for the opposing party

to reply to those objections) against the report and recommendation.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: July 27, 2026 <a

HON. STEVE KIM

United States Magistrate Judge