A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration's argument that it can restart a six-month detention clock when immigrants are detained again after being released.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled Wednesday in the case of Kavah Abedi, an Iranian national who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in June 2025, more than two decades after he was released from immigration custody.
The court found that the government could not treat the first six months of Abedi's re-detention as presumptively reasonable under a Supreme Court ruling governing prolonged detention while the government seek to remove a person from the United States.
The appeals court also ruled that immigration officials violated federal regulations by failing to provide Abedi with a prompt interview after revoking his release, denying him an opportunity to challenge the basis for his detention.
The decision reverses parts of a lower court ruling and sends the case back for further proceedings.
Why Does This Matter?
The ruling addresses the limits of the federal government's authority to detain immigrants who have final orders of removal but cannot be deported in the reasonably foreseeable future.
In its 2001 decision in Zadvydas v. Davis, the Supreme Court established a six-month period of presumptively reasonable detention following the removal period.
After that, if a detainee provides good reason to believe there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, the government must respond with evidence sufficient to rebut that showing.
The Trump administration argued that the six-month presumption should restart when a person is released from immigration detention and later detained again.
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The Tenth Circuit rejected that interpretation, concluding that the six-month presumption applies only to the first six months after the removal period begins and should not be applied again to Abedi's re-detention.
The court sent the case back to the district court to reconsider his detention claim without applying that presumption.
The ruling does not automatically require the release of all immigrants who are detained again. Instead, it establishes how the six-month presumption must be applied when courts assess the legality of detention in circumstances like Abedi's.
What Happened To Kaveh Abedi?
Abedi was 10 when his family fled Iran and entered the United States in 1991, where they were granted asylum, according to the court's opinion.
After he was convicted of a drug possession offense in California, he was placed in removal proceedings.
In September 2002, an immigration judge granted Abedi deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture.
He was later released under an order of supervision because his removal was not considered reasonably foreseeable.
Over the following two decades, Abedi complied with the conditions imposed by immigration officials, including attending required check-ins and seeking permission before traveling outside his state of residence, the court said.
Abedi married a U.S. citizen in 2016 and had been his wife's primary provider and caretaker since 2020, as her chronic health conditions prevented her from continuing to work as a chef.
In 2025, the couple moved from California to Kansas for financial reasons after receiving approval from ICE.
On June 23, 2025, ICE officers detained Abedi outside his home while one told his wife that he was being deported to Iran, according to the court's account.
Abedi had previously been granted protection under the Convention Against Torture, which had resulted in the deferral of his removal.
While in detention, he received a notice stating that his release had been revoked because "removal to a country other than Iran is now a possibility". The notice also said he would "promptly be afforded an informal interview" at which he could respond to the reasons for the decision.
However, the government did not dispute that Abedi had not received the promised interview by the time the case was briefed on appeal.
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The court noted that documents from a following case suggested an interview may eventually have taken place in January 2026, more than six months after his re-detention.
Abedi filed a habeas corpus petition in July 2025, challenging the legality of his detention, but a district court denied his petition that October.
In January 2026, he filed a second petition arguing that his detention had exceeded six months and that there was no real likelihood of his removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.
The district court granted that petition in February and he was released under an order of supervision on February 25, but the government then argued that his release meant the original appeal should be dismissed.
The Tenth Circuit rejected that argument, finding that the dispute could recur and evade judicial review.
What The Court Decided
The appeals court found that the district court had made legal errors in assessing Abedi's claims on two central issues.
First, it ruled that the government had violated its own regulations by failing to provide the required prompt interview after revoking his release.
The court said the interview requirement was designed to allow a detained person to challenge the reasons for their detention, but it rejected the government’s position that it should not be held to a particular time frame for providing that process.
The court said that accepting that argument would make the promptness requirement meaningless and effectively insulate administrative decisions from judicial review.
The government had not explained why it could not have interviewed Abedi within the four weeks before he filed his first habeas petition or the three months before the district court ruled on it.
The appeals court also rejected the lower court's conclusion that Abedi had not demonstrated sufficient prejudice from the failure to provide the interview.
It found that the regulatory safeguards protected fundamental due process rights and that the government's failure to follow them warranted relief.
Second, the court found that the district court had applied the wrong legal standard to Abedi’s claim under Zadvydas v. Davis by treating the first six months of his re-detention as presumptively reasonable.
The Supreme Court’s decision limits post-removal-period detention to a period reasonably necessary to secure a person’s removal, while its six-month presumption is intended to help courts assess when continued detention may no longer be lawful.
The Tenth Circuit also rejected the government’s interpretation that the presumption could begin again following re-detention.
The appeals court’s decision does not itself establish that every instance of re-detention is unlawful, instead it requires courts to assess the legality of detention without automatically treating the first six months after re-detention as presumptively reasonable.
The case will now return to the district court for further proceedings.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Paul Donnelley.