United States of America v. Efrain Leonides -Seguria

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-1765
U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
EFRAIN LEONIDES -S EGURIA,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:21-cr-00390-1 — John F. Kness, Judge
____________________
A RGUED DECEMBER 12, 2024 — DECIDED A PRIL 18, 2025
____________________
Before R IPPLE, S CUDDER , and M ALDONADO, Circuit Judges.
S CUDDER , Circuit Judge. Efrain Leonides-Seguria urges us
to overturn his conviction for illegal reentry into the United
States, contending the government violated the Speedy Trial
Act by filing the criminal information more than 30 days after
his apprehension on immigration charges. By its terms, the
Act does not apply to civil custody, which includes Leonides-
Seguria’s time in immigration detention. But several courts
have carved out an exception when federal law enforcement

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2 No. 24-1765
authorities collude with immigration officials to hold an indi-
vidual on immigration charges as a mere ruse for later prose-
cution—buying prosecutors time to build a criminal case
without implicating the Act’s deadlines, while their target
nevertheless remains in custody. Leonides-Seguria asks us to
recognize this so-called “ruse exception.” This is not the case
to resolve the question, though, as Leonides-Seguria’s appeal
falls short of presenting circumstances that would give rise to
its application. So we save the legal question for another day
and affirm.
I
Efrain Leonides-Seguria is a citizen of Mexico without any
claim to American citizenship or lawful residence here. On
several occasions he has entered the United States illegally
and, in turn, been removed by immigration authorities.
On June 15, 2021, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
again discovered Leonides-Seguria in the United States and
detained him on administrative charges. Six days after taking
Leonides-Seguria into custody, immigration officials referred
him for criminal prosecution to the United States Attorney’s
Office in Chicago. On June 23—within two days of receiving
the referral—federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint
against Leonides-Seguria for illegal reentry into the United
States. See 8 U.S.C. § 1326. A magistrate judge issued an arrest
warrant that same day.
Leonides-Seguria remained in immigration custody until
June 28, when federal officials arrested him on the criminal
complaint and brought him to federal court for his initial ap-
pearance. Leonides-Seguria later waived prosecution by

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No. 24-1765 3
indictment and consented to the filing of a criminal infor-
mation on July 27.
The district court denied Leonides-Seguria’s motions to
dismiss the federal charge on the grounds that the govern-
ment violated the Speedy Trial Act and, separately, that
§ 1326 is unconstitutional. Leonides-Seguria then chose to
plead guilty, reserving the right to appeal the denials of his
motions to dismiss on both grounds. The district court sen-
tenced him to 51 months’ imprisonment.
Leonides-Seguria now appeals.
II
A
The Sixth Amendment promises anyone accused of a
crime “the right to a speedy and public trial.” This right limits
the time during which criminal charges can hang over a de-
fendant’s head. See United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 317–
18 (1971). For constitutional purposes, the “right to a speedy
trial is triggered by an arrest, indictment, or some other offi-
cial accusation.” United States v. Arceo, 535 F.3d 679, 684 (7th
Cir. 2008). And a pretrial delay of “approximately nine
months,” we have emphasized, warrants a “searching analy-
sis” under the factors the Supreme Court described in Barker
v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972). See United States v. White, 443
F.3d 582, 589–90 (7th Cir. 2006).
In 1974 Congress enacted the Speedy Trial Act to “imple-
ment the Sixth Amendment’s right to a speedy trial.” United
States v. Janik, 723 F.2d 537, 542 (7th Cir. 1983). The Act estab-
lishes and enumerates specific time limits during which the
various stages of a federal criminal prosecution must be com-
pleted.

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4 No. 24-1765
As relevant here, the Act provides that “[a]ny information
or indictment charging an individual with the commission of
an offense shall be filed within thirty days from the date on
which such individual was arrested or served with a sum-
mons in connection with such charges.” 18 U.S.C. § 3161(b).
Congress defined “offense” to mean “any Federal criminal of-
fense.” Id. § 3172(2) (emphasis added).
We have explained that the Act’s 30-day limit does not
“begin to run because of just any arrest based on the conduct
that ultimately supports the federal prosecution.” United
States v. Clark, 754 F.3d 401, 405 (7th Cir. 2014). Rather, an “ar-
rest must be for the purpose of bringing federal [criminal]
charges,” as the right protected by the Act “applies only to
persons who are formally accused of a crime.” Id. Upon ar-
resting someone on criminal charges, the government has 30
days to file an information or indictment formally bringing
the charges of the arrest. See 18 U.S.C. § 3161(b). Failure to
comply with the deadline requires dismissal of the underly-
ing criminal charges. See id. § 3162(a)(1).
B
We begin with two points of agreement between the par-
ties. First, the government filed the criminal information
charging Leonides-Seguria with illegal reentry on July 27,
2021. This occurred 29 days after his June 28 arrest on the
same criminal charges and thus within the 30-day Speedy
Trial Act period. Against this backdrop, Leonides-Seguria’s
claim that the government violated the Act hinges upon his
contention that the statutory clock began to run before his for-
mal arrest on criminal charges—during his civil immigration
detention by ICE.

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No. 24-1765 5
Second, the parties agree that, as a general matter, the
Speedy Trial Act does not apply to civil detention and, by ex-
tension here, to ICE administrative detention. Section 3161(b),
by its terms, exclusively governs federal criminal prosecu-
tions, and only an arrest on criminal charges triggers its time
limit. Immigration removal, however, is a “purely civil action
to determine eligibility to remain in this country, not to pun-
ish an unlawful entry.” INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032,
1038 (1984). Although we have not had occasion to address
the issue, every circuit court to do so has agreed that detention
on federal immigration charges typically does not start the
Act’s 30-day clock. See United States v. Rodriguez-Amaya, 521
F.3d 437, 441 (4th Cir. 2008) (collecting cases); United States v.
Pasillas-Castanon, 525 F.3d 994, 997 (10th Cir. 2008) (same).
Leonides-Seguria invites us to adopt and apply an excep-
tion to the usual rule that ICE detention does not trigger a
running of time under the Speedy Trial Act. The “ruse excep-
tion,” he tells us, applies when an individual is initially de-
tained on immigration charges but prosecutors later file crim-
inal charges—such as illegal reentry pursuant to § 1326. The
exception operates to prevent criminal authorities from using
the expedient of civil immigration detention to ensure a target
for prosecution stays in custody while the Act’s 30-day dead-
line nevertheless remains at bay.
The Ninth Circuit has adopted this ruse exception. “The
requirements of the Act,” the court reasoned, “would lose all
meaning if federal criminal authorities could collude with
civil … officials to have those authorities detain a defendant
pending federal criminal charges solely for the purpose of by-
passing the requirements of the Speedy Trial Act.” United
States v. Cepeda-Luna, 989 F.2d 353, 357 (9th Cir. 1993).

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6 No. 24-1765
Accordingly, the court continued, “the Speedy Trial Act can
be applied to civil detentions which are mere ruses to detain
a defendant for later criminal prosecution.” Id. But on the facts
before it, the court determined that the exception did not ap-
ply and declined to grant relief under the Act. See id. at 357–
58.
Several other circuits have taken a similar approach—
recognizing the ruse exception in theory but finding it
inapplicable on the particular facts before them. See, e.g.,
United States v. Garcia-Martinez, 254 F.3d 16, 20–21 (1st Cir.
2001); United States v. Guevara-Umana, 538 F.3d 139, 142 (2d
Cir. 2008); Rodriguez-Amaya, 521 F.3d at 442; United States v.
De La Pena-Juarez, 214 F.3d 594, 598 (5th Cir. 2000); Pasillas-
Castanon, 525 F.3d at 997–99; United States v. Noel, 231 F.3d 833,
836–37 (11th Cir. 2000). As the law stands today, then, no
court of appeals has afforded a criminal defendant relief
under the Speedy Trial Act based on a ruse exception.
It is far from clear that the plain language of the Speedy
Trial Act permits anything other than a formal arrest on crim-
inal charges to start the Act’s 30-day clock. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 3172(2) (defining “offense” within the meaning of the
Speedy Trial Act as a “Federal criminal offense” (emphasis
added)); see also United States v. Hopkins, 106 F.4th 280, 289–
93 (3d Cir. 2024) (concluding that “a ruse exception is incon-
sistent with the text of the [Act] and that there are sound pol-
icy rationales for declining to adopt a ruse exception”).
Even if the Act could be read to permit a ruse exception,
the necessary second step would be to define its scope and
content. Some courts, for example, have put the burden of
proof on defendants to show the “primary or exclusive
purpose” of their civil detention was to hold them for future

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No. 24-1765 7
criminal prosecution. See, e.g., Rodriguez-Amaya, 521 F.3d at
442. Others have required evidence of “bad faith” collusion
on the part of the government officials. See, e.g., Pasillas-
Castanon, 525 F.3d at 998 n.1. And still others have said that a
defendant is not entitled to invoke the exception if the
detaining authorities had a “lawful basis” for the civil
detention. See, e.g., United States v. Kelley, 40 F.4th 276, 283–84
(5th Cir. 2022).
But we need not—and do not—resolve today what
circumstances, if any, would suffice to constitute a “ruse.”
Assuming for purposes of this appeal that, in some
extraordinary set of circumstances, § 3161(b) of the Speedy
Trial Act applies to persons civilly detained and awaiting
removal, no formulation of the exception would provide
Leonides-Seguria relief on the facts before us.
C
Before ruling on Leonides-Seguria’s motion to dismiss, the
district court conducted an evidentiary hearing to evaluate
the applicability of the ruse exception. Three ICE officials
testified, explaining the typical procedures the agency uses in
connection with immigration detainees, removal logistics,
and referrals for prosecution. And they further described
Leonides-Seguria’s apprehension and processing through
ICE custody in June 2021. The district court credited their
testimony and found no evidence of collusion between
immigration authorities and federal prosecutors to
circumvent the protections of the Speedy Trial Act.
We see no clear error in that finding. See United States v.
Trudeau, 812 F.3d 578, 583 (7th Cir. 2016). To the contrary, the
handling of Leonides-Seguria’s case demonstrates ordinary

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8 No. 24-1765
cooperation between federal officials in processing an indi-
vidual subject to both removal and criminal prosecution as a
result of unlawful entry into the United States.
Less than a week after federal immigration authorities de-
tained Leonides-Seguria on administrative charges, an ICE of-
ficial reviewed his case to assess whether he met the criteria
to be presented for prosecution. The official determined that
he did and, that same day, referred the case to the United
States Attorney’s Office and recommended Leonides-Seguria
be charged with violating 8 U.S.C. § 1326. Two days later, on
Wednesday, June 23, federal prosecutors filed a criminal com-
plaint against Leonides-Seguria. Based on the complaint and
supporting affidavit, a magistrate judge issued an arrest war-
rant later that same day. Finally, after sorting out some logis-
tical details, ICE arrested Leonides-Seguria the following
Monday, June 28.
Immigration officials undoubtedly had authority to detain
Leonides-Seguria on administrative charges for returning to
the United States without lawful status. And Leonides-
Seguria has failed to point to evidence that ICE apprehended
him at the request of criminal authorities—let alone did so
primarily to hold him to buy more time or further a criminal
investigation. Indeed, the record demonstrates that
prosecutors were not even aware of Leonides-Seguria’s case
until ICE referred it to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
We see no basis for concluding that federal prosecutors
colluded with ICE personnel to prolong Leonides-Seguria’s
detention or evade Speedy Trial Act deadlines. To the
contrary, prosecutors moved quickly upon receiving ICE’s
referral to swear out a criminal complaint and arrest
Leonides-Seguria. Everything happened within a single

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No. 24-1765 9
week. This timeline reflects nothing more than the efficient
processing of a non-citizen for both removal and criminal
prosecution. On these facts, we have little trouble concluding
that Leonides-Seguria’s arrest and prosecution did not violate
the Speedy Trial Act.
Leonides-Seguria urges us to read the ruse exception more
broadly. Relief under the Speedy Trial Act is warranted, he
contends, even in the absence of bad faith collusion among
government officials where an individual remains in ICE cus-
tody after it becomes apparent that federal criminal authori-
ties intend to prosecute him. On this view, the U.S. Attorney’s
Office’s filing a criminal complaint confirmed that Leonides-
Seguria’s detention—though officially on civil immigration
charges—was primarily for the purpose of a prosecution. And
so, Leonides-Seguria continues, the speedy trial clock began
no later than June 23, the day prosecutors filed the criminal
complaint—not June 28, the day of his arrest. By his reading,
then, the Act’s 30-day deadline expired before prosecutors ul-
timately filed the criminal information on July 27.
But Leonides-Seguria takes too narrow a view of the “pri-
mary purpose” of his civil immigration custody—ignoring
both the totality of circumstances surrounding his detention
by ICE and the routine interaction and cooperation between
government officials that preceded and accompanied the fil-
ing of criminal charges and arrest. Indeed, as the district court
observed, Leonides-Seguria’s position is “unmoored from the
stated justification for the ruse exception: namely, preventing
‘[t]he requirements of the Speedy Trial Act [from] los[ing] all
meaning’ by allowing collusion between federal prosecutors
and civil or state officials ‘solely for the purpose of bypassing
the requirements of the Speedy Trial Act.’” United States v.

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10 No. 24-1765
Leonides-Seguria, 730 F. Supp. 3d 772, 782 (N.D. Ill. 2024) (al-
terations in original) (quoting Cepeda-Luna, 989 F.2d at 357).
Finally, principles of separation of powers require a fed-
eral court to proceed with caution before interfering with co-
ordination between different arms of the Executive Branch.
By no means are we saying that federal immigration officials
can collude with prosecutors to hold a non-citizen indefinitely
as they build evidence for a criminal case. And perhaps in an
extreme and extraordinary situation, a de facto “arrest”
within the meaning of § 3161(b) of the Speedy Trial Act could
occur while an individual remains in civil immigration cus-
tody. But such circumstances are not before us today. To hold
that facts and circumstances like the ones before us here re-
flect a bad faith “ruse” would upend the ordinary administra-
tion of immigration law. We decline that invitation.
In the final analysis, we agree with the district court’s
finding of no Speedy Trial Act violation and the denial of
Leonides-Seguria’s motion to dismiss.
III
We owe a brief word in closing to Leonides-Seguria’s in-
dependent contention that Congress’s criminal prohibition on
illegal reentry into the United States in 8 U.S.C. § 1326 violates
the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. As
counsel candidly acknowledged at oral argument, our prece-
dent forecloses this position. See United States v. Viveros-
Chavez, 114 F.4th 618, 630 (7th Cir. 2024), cert. denied, No. 24-
6002, 2025 WL 76643 (U.S. Jan. 13, 2025).
For these reasons, we AFFIRM.

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