Case Name in Immigration Case - Unavailable

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
Dakaret Lopez Flores
v. 	Case No. 1:26-cv-94-PB-TSM
Opinion No. 2026 DNH 049
Christopher Brackett,
Superintendent, Strafford County
Department of Corrections, et al.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Like dozens of detained aliens who have petitioned this Court for
habeas relief in recent months, Dakaret Lopez Flores demonstrated his
entitlement to an individualized custody determination, or bond hearing,
before an immigration judge (“IJ”) under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a). This Court
accordingly ordered the government to afford him a bond hearing, and the
government purported to comply. Lopez Flores now moves this Court to
“enforce” that order, alleging that said bond hearing made short shrift of his
procedural due process rights under Hernandez-Lara v. Lyons, 10 F.4th 19
(1st Cir. 2021). See Doc. 12.
Mindful of my limited jurisdiction to remedy only those procedural
shortcomings of his bond hearing that produced constitutional error, I
conclude that Lopez Flores fails to show that the IJ lacked sufficient evidence
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as a matter of law to find that he poses a danger to the community. I thus
deny his motion and dismiss his petition to the extent he seeks relief beyond
the bond hearing he has already received.
I. BACKGROUND1
Lopez Flores, a Honduran national, entered the United States in
November 2002. Doc. 1 at 4; Doc. 1-2 at 6. Federal immigration authorities
arrested him six years later in New Hampshire and issued him a Notice to
Appear, alleging that he was unlawfully present. Doc. 1-2 at 2, 4. Sometime
thereafter, he was released and apparently remained free until November
2025, when immigration authorities re-detained him. See Doc. 1 at 4. Since
then, Lopez Flores has remained in federal custody at Strafford County
Department of Corrections in Dover, New Hampshire. See id.
Lopez Flores petitioned this Court for a writ of habeas corpus granting
his immediate release in February 2026, asserting violations of the
Immigration and Nationality Act and the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process
Clause. Lopez Flores. Id. at 8-21. The government ultimately conceded that
Lopez Flores was eligible for a bond hearing under the reasoning of Destino
1 	The facts material to resolving Lopez Flores’s motion are not in dispute
and drawn from the pleadings and attached exhibits.
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v. FCI Berlin, 2025 DNH 149, 2025 WL 4010424 (D.N.H. Dec. 24, 2025). See
Doc. 5 at 3. I accordingly ordered the government to afford Lopez Flores a
bond hearing under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) as soon as practicable. See Doc. 6 at
1-2. In a subsequent status report, the government represented that Lopez
Flores received the ordered hearing on February 24, 2026, at which an IJ
denied bond after finding that Lopez Flores “is a danger to the community by
clear and convincing evidence.” See Doc. 9 at 1; Doc. 9-1 at 1.
Based on the government’s representation, I ordered Lopez Flores to
show cause why I should not dismiss his petition now that he has received a
bond hearing. See Doc. 10. Lopez Flores responded by objecting to dismissal
and filing a “motion to enforce” my order granting relief, see Doc. 6, claiming
that the IJ “did not fully comply” with my order because she neglected to
abide by the constitutionally compelled standards which govern bond
determinations in the First Circuit. See Doc. 12 at 2 (citing Hernandez-Lara,
10 F.4th 19). Following a status conference, the parties briefed the applicable
legal issues, and the government supplied the Court with an audio recording
of Lopez Flores’s bond hearing. See Doc. 14; Doc. 15.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
When a person is held “in custody in violation of the Constitution or
laws or treaties of the United States,” habeas corpus relief is appropriate. 28
U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3). The habeas petitioner carries the burden of proving that
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his detention is unlawful. Espinoza v. Sabol, 558 F.3d 83, 89 (1st Cir. 2009)
(“The burden of proof of showing deprivation of rights leading to unlawful
detention is on the petitioner.”). If a petition “present[s] only issues of law,” it
may be resolved on the merits without a hearing. See 28 U.S.C. § 2243; see
also R. Governing Section 2254 Cases 8(a); LR 7.4(c).
III. ANALYSIS
In his motion to enforce, Lopez Flores assails the IJ’s dangerousness
analysis and attendant denial of bond, arguing that she misappraised the
government’s evidence and failed to consider alternative conditions to
detention that would have mollified the government’s concerns about
releasing him. In addition to defending the rigor of the IJ’s decision, the
government challenges this Court’s jurisdiction to consider Lopez Flores’s
motion. Before reaching the merits of Lopez Flores’s motion, I must begin by
considering the government’s jurisdictional contentions.
A. 	Jurisdiction
Insistent that Lopez Flores’s bond hearing is unreviewable by this
Court, the government identifies three authorities that purportedly strip my
jurisdiction over his motion to enforce. As explained below, however, none
have that effect.
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First, the government cites 8 U.S.C. § 1226(e). That provision,
referencing the statutory authority for conditional release among other
things, reads:
The 	Attorney 	General’s 	discretionary 	judgment 	regarding 	the
application of this section shall not be subject to review. No court
may set aside any action or decision by the Attorney General under
this section regarding the detention of any alien or the revocation
or denial of bond or parole.
8 U.S.C. § 1226(e). In the government’s view, the IJ’s denial of bond for Lopez
Flores is an “action or decision” made by the Attorney General in his
“discretionary judgment,” placing it squarely within the plain meaning of the
provision’s divestiture of Article III courts’ jurisdiction. See id.
But of course, it is well established in the First Circuit that the
government does not have “discretion” to exceed the “constitutional
restraints” on its detention authority. See Hernandez-Lara, 10 F.4th at
33-34. Rather, the government’s decision “in each case to grant or deny bond”
is only unreviewable under § 1226(e) to the extent that it falls “within those
limits” set by the Due Process Clause. See id. Where an alien’s habeas
petition claims that the government’s denial of bond breached those implicit
limits—such as by relying on evidence that was insufficient as a matter of
law, as Lopez Flores alleges—this Court has jurisdiction to evaluate that
contention. See Makuraza v. Wesling, 2026 DNH 042, 2026 WL 1068066, at
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*2 (D.N.H. Apr. 20, 2026); Acero v. FCI Berlin, Acting Warden, 2026 DNH
025, 2026 WL 821896, at *3 (D.N.H. Mar. 25, 2026) (collecting cases).
Second, seemingly conceding the weakness in its primary argument,
the government cites language from my colleague’s decision in Mayancela
Mayancela v. FCI Berlin, Warden, where the Court quoted from a District of
Massachusetts case which noted that § 1226(e) permits “review of ‘whether
the petitioner received the constitutional due process to which he was
entitled.’” See 2025 DNH 135, 2025 WL 3215638, at *4 (D.N.H. Nov. 18,
2025) (quoting Massingue v. Streeter, 2020 WL 1866255, at *4 (D. Mass.
Apr. 14, 2020)). To the extent that the government seeks to reinforce the
distinction between challenges to the constitutionality of an IJ’s denial of
bond and her exercise of discretionary judgment within constitutional
bounds, that much is consistent with the First Circuit’s delineation in
Hernandez-Lara discussed above, and I agree. See 10 F.4th at 33-34.
However, also by citation to Mayancela Mayancela, the government
seems to further argue that because “it is clear from the recording of the bond
hearing” that the IJ “imposed the correct standard” in denying bond, all that
is left to review is the IJ’s discretionary judgment to that effect, leaving no
cognizable issue for this Court to review. See Doc. 15 at 5-6. The
government’s logic on this score circularly, and mistakenly, collapses the
jurisdictional and merits inquiries presented by an alien’s habeas petition.
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Under the government’s view, a court’s jurisdiction would be contingent on a
petition’s legal merit, effectively inserting an unstated “likelihood of success”
requirement where none exists. The government cites no authority that
supports such an approach.
Third and finally, the government argues that I “should decline” to
exercise jurisdiction over Lopez Flores’s petition because he failed to exhaust
his administrative remedies. See id. at 7. Here, the government points to
Lopez Flores’s decision not to appeal the IJ’s bond denial to the BIA,
asserting that his election not to do so “precludes” this Court from reviewing
it as well. See id.
“There are two species of exhaustion: statutory and common-law. The
former deprives a federal court of jurisdiction, while the latter ‘cedes
discretion to a [federal] court to decline the exercise of jurisdiction.’” Brito v.
Garland, 22 F.4th 240, 255 (1st Cir. 2021) (alteration in original) (citation
omitted) (quoting Anversa v. Partners Healthcare Sys., Inc., 835 F.3d 167,
174-76 (1st Cir. 2016)). Absent a statutory imperative, “federal courts have
some leeway to relax this requirement.” Anversa, 835 F.3d at 176; cf. Morgan
v. Garland, 120 F.4th 913, 927 (1st Cir. 2024) (adhering to exhaustion
requirement where explicitly required by statute). In considering whether to
do so, a court “must balance the interest of the individual in retaining prompt
access to a federal judicial forum against countervailing institutional
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interests favoring exhaustion.” Id. (quoting McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U.S.
140, 146 (1992)). Relaxing this rule is especially warranted where the
petitioner “may suffer irreparable harm if unable to secure immediate
judicial consideration of his claim.” Portela-Gonzalez v. Sec’y of the Navy, 109
F.3d 74, 77 (1st Cir. 1997) (quoting McCarthy, 503 U.S. at 147).
Here, the government does not point to any statute mandating
administrative exhaustion of an IJ’s denial of bond, instead making its
argument within the interest-balancing framework of common-law
exhaustion. On that inquiry, I agree with my colleague, who recently
concluded that an alien detainee’s near-identical claim “warrant[ed] waiver of
exhaustion under” this standard. See Makuraza, 2026 WL 1068066, at *2. As
my colleague noted, see id., the First Circuit has specifically identified cases
in which the petitioner is “challenging [his] incarceration . . . or the ongoing
deprivation of some other liberty interest” as appropriately exempted from
common-law exhaustion requirements. Brito, 22 F.4th at 256 (second
alteration in original) (quoting Bois v. Marsh, 801 F.2d 462, 468 (D.C. Cir.
1986)). Given that the sole basis for Lopez Flores’s continued detention is the
result of the bond hearing challenged here, his weighty interest in his own
liberty outweighs the government’s “institutional interest[]” in having the
BIA take the first pass at review. Anversa, 835 F.3d at 176 (quoting
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McCarthy, 503 U.S. at 146). I therefore find that Lopez Flores is not required
to exhaust his administrative remedies in this case.
In sum, the government fails to identify any authority depriving this
Court of jurisdiction to review Lopez Flores’s claim to the extent of assessing
his bond hearing’s compliance with constitutional imperatives. See
Hernandez-Lara, 10 F.4th at 33-34. Accordingly, I proceed to consider the
merits of his constitutional challenge.
B. 	Due Process Claim
As previewed, Lopez Flores claims that the IJ’s analysis of his bond
request was constitutionally defective in two respects. First, he claims that
the government’s evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to warrant his
detention based on a danger his release poses to the community. Second, he
argues that the IJ erred in failing to consider alternatives to his detention.
Importantly, although this Court indeed has jurisdiction to review the
constitutionality of Lopez Flores’s bond hearing, that review is very
deferential. See Acero, 2026 WL 821896, at *3. While “IJs generally must
sufficiently explain their reasoning to permit appellate or judicial review of
their decisions,” an IJ “‘need not discuss ad nauseam every piece of evidence’”
nor “‘spell out every last detail of [her] reasoning where the logical
underpinnings are clear from the record.’” Mayancela Mayancela, 2025 WL
3215638, at *6 (alteration in original) (first quoting Barnica-Lopez v.
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Garland, 59 F.4th 520, 530 (1st Cir. 2023); and then quoting López-Gómez v.
Bondi, 154 F.4th 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2025)). Mindful of this deference afforded the
IJ, I address each of Lopez Flores’s claims of error in turn.
First, Lopez Flores contends that the government’s evidence was
insufficient as a matter of law to prove that he poses a danger to the
community by clear and convincing evidence, the burden of proof that the
government must meet to detain an alien based on his dangerousness. See
Hernandez-Lara, 10 F.4th at 41. Lopez Flores principally faults the IJ for
ordering his detention based solely on his arrest for a domestic altercation,
countering that his ultimate guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge for
disorderly conduct and his lack of a prior criminal history should have
overcome the arrest’s significance. But Lopez Flores does not point to any
binding authority precluding the IJ from weighing the evidence as she did.
Moreover, even if the IJ had relied solely on the conduct to which Lopez
Flores did plead guilty, the IJ could have reasonably found that his
acknowledged conduct (“banging on the door” and “threatening” someone, see
Doc. 15-1 at 1) rendered him a prospective danger to the community. While
other courts might have concluded otherwise in view of Lopez Flores’s
otherwise silent criminal record, his mere disagreement with the IJ’s
reasonable alternative weighing of the evidence is insufficient to conclude
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that his bond hearing was constitutionally defective.2 See Makuraza, 2026
WL 1068066, at *3.
Lopez Flores additionally alleges that the IJ constitutionally erred in
failing to consider less restrictive alternatives to his detention. Beyond
asserting it in a conclusory manner, however, Lopez Flores does not develop
this argument, much less point to any authority to support it. Moreover, even
if he did not waive the issue, the IJ’s reasonable conclusion that Lopez Flores
posed a danger to the community foreclosed any consideration of alternative
conditions to outright detention. See Black v. Decker, 103 F.4th 133, 159 (2d
Cir. 2024) (“[W]e stress that a showing of dangerous by clear and convincing
evidence would foreclose any possibility of bond. The IJ would then have no
reason to consider . . . alternatives to detention.”); see also In re Guerra, 24 I.
& N. Dec. 37 (BIA 2006) (“An alien who presents a danger to persons or
property should not be released during the pendency of removal
proceedings.”).
2 	In this posture, my review is limited to the circumstances of Lopez
Flores’s bond hearing specifically and whether they facially cast doubt on his
detention’s constitutionality. See Acero, 2026 WL 821896, at *3. To the extent
that Lopez Flores alleges a systematic institution of “pro forma compliance”
with orders like mine, see Doc. 14 at 7, that claim would require
commensurate factual development not conducted in this individualized
habeas proceeding.
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In summary, Lopez Flores has not established that the IJ contravened
his due process rights in conducting his bond hearing. He has therefore failed
to demonstrate a defect within this Court’s jurisdiction to remedy. See
Hernandez-Lara, 10 F.4th at 33-34.
IV. CONCLUSION
Because Lopez Flores fails to show that his bond hearing exhibited
constitutional error, his motion to enforce, Doc. 14, is denied. Furthermore,
because his motion constituted his response to my prior order, Doc. 10, he has
failed to show cause why his petition should not be dismissed. The clerk shall
enter judgment accordingly and close the case.
SO ORDERED.
/s/ Paul J. Barbadoro
Paul J. Barbadoro
United States District Judge
April 30, 2026
cc: 	Counsel of Record
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