FAITH S. HOCHBERG, District Judge.
Petitioner Rency Varghese, an immigration detainee confined at the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark, New Jersey, has submitted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241,
Petitioner is a native of India, who, at the time of filing the petition, had been detained for approximately eight months awaiting the resolution of his removal proceedings. Petitioner entered the United States on January 20, 2009 on a temporary work visa but remained in the country without authorization. He was subsequently convicted of sexual assault of a minor and sentenced to a four-year term of incarceration. Petitioner was paroled on March 28, 2013 and taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") on that same date. Petitioner now files this petition challenging his ongoing mandatory detention during removal proceedings.
Federal law sets forth the authority of the Attorney General to detain aliens in removal proceedings, both before and after issuance of a final order of removal. Title 8 U.S.C. § 1226 governs pre-removal-order detention of an alien. Section 1226(c) authorizes the Attorney General to arrest, and to detain or release, an alien, pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States, except as provided in subsection (c). Section 1226(a) provides, in relevant part:
(A) bond of at least $1,500 with security approved by, and containing conditions prescribed by, the Attorney General; or
(B) conditional parole; ...
8 U.S.C. § 1226(a).
Certain criminal aliens, however, are subject to mandatory detention pending the outcome of removal proceedings, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c)(1), which provides in relevant part:
8 U.S.C. § 1226(c)(1).
"Post-removal order" detention is governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a). Section 1231(a)(1) requires the Attorney General to attempt to effectuate removal within a 90-day "removal period." The removal period begins on the latest of the following:
8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(1)(B). "An order or removal made by the immigration judge at the conclusion of proceedings ... shall become final ... [u]pon dismissal of an appeal by the Board of Immigration Appeals." 8 C.F.R. § 1241.1(a). During the removal period, "the Attorney General shall detain the alien." 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(2). Section 1231(a)(6) permits continued detention if removal is not effected within 90 days. However, the United States Supreme Court has held that such post-removal-order detention is subject to a temporal reasonableness standard. Specifically, once a presumptively-reasonable six-month period of post-removal-order detention has passed, a detained alien must be released if he can establish that his removal is not reasonably foreseeable. See Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001).
Petitioner challenges his ongoing mandatory detention pursuant to pre-removal proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c). As set forth above, an alien is subject to mandatory detention and subsequently removal or deportation from the United States when he/she:
8 U.S.C. § 1226(c)(1)(B).
Petitioner here does not assert a claim of unreasonably prolonged detention in violation of the Due Process Clause under Diop v. ICE/Homeland Sec., 656 F.3d 221 (3d Cir. 2011) (finding that Diop's nearly three-year detention was unconstitutionally unreasonable and, therefore, a violation of due process). In Diop, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit concluded that the mandatory detention statute, § 1226(c), implicitly authorizes detention for a reasonable amount of time, after which the authorities must make an individualized inquiry into whether detention is still necessary to fulfill the statute's purposes of ensuring that an alien attends removal proceedings and that his release will not pose a danger to the community. 656 F.3d at 231. Specifically, the Third Circuit found that the 35-month mandatory detention of Diop was unreasonable partly because the immigration judge had committed "numerous errors" that caused the BIA to remand the case three times. Id. at 224-26, 234-35.
Nevertheless, the Third Circuit has not set a "universal point" when mandatory detention under § 1226(c) is unreasonable. See Leslie v. Attorney Gen., 678 F.3d 265, 270-71 (3d Cir. 2012) (ultimately finding that Leslie's four-year detention under § 1226(c) was unreasonable because it had been prolonged by the alien's successful appeals, and petitioner should not be punished by continued detention for having pursued these "bona fide" legal remedies).
In this case, at the time that this opinion is written, the time frame in which Petitioner has been detained is far short of the lengthy detention period of 35 months which was found to be unreasonable by the Third Circuit in Diop, and the four-year period of detention found to be unreasonable in Leslie. Petitioner here has not shown that his mandatory detention until this time is a violation of the Due Process Clause. Accordingly, the Court dismisses the petition without prejudice to Petitioner bringing a new and separate action under either Diop or Zadvydas (holding that post-removal-period detention is six months) in the event that the facts and circumstances of Petitioner's custody and detention by ICE should change in the future.
For the foregoing reasons, the Court denies Petitioner's application for habeas relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. However, denial is without prejudice to the filing of another § 2241 petition should Petitioner's detention become unreasonable. An appropriate Order follows.