DECISION & ORDER Damion G.V. Davis has been detained in the custody of the United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), for more than three years. Docket Item 11 at 13. On June 9, 2022, Davis filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. §2241 challenging the validity of his detention at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility (“BFDF”) in Batavia, New York, and on August 1, 2022, he filed an amended petition through counsel. Docket Items 1, 11. The government then moved to dismiss Davis’s amended petition, arguing that this Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over many of Davis’s claims and that, in any event, Davis’s amended petition was moot and an abuse of the writ of habeas corpus. Docket Item 12. On November 22, 2022, this Court granted the motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. Docket Item 14. The Court agreed that it lacked jurisdiction to evaluate Davis’s “substantial claim” to citizenship and dismissed any habeas claim based on that argument. Id. But the Court declined to dismiss Davis’s amended petition altogether because it was unclear whether Davis had ever received the relief he sought: a constitutionally adequate bond hearing. Id. More specifically, the Court found that Davis’s prior bond hearing may not have been adequate because it was unclear whether the immigration judge who conducted the hearing considered alternatives to detention before ordering that Davis be detained. Id. On December 13, 2022, the government answered the amended petition. Docket Item 15. The government concedes that the immigration judge denied release without “expressly addressing alternatives to detention” but argues that an immigration judge need not consider alternatives to detention after finding that a noncitizen poses a danger to the community. Docket Item 15-1 at 13. Moreover, the government maintains that Davis waived any challenge to the bond hearing, was not prejudiced by any deficiencies at that hearing, and has abused the writ of habeas corpus.1 Id. at 20-23. On December 29, 2022, Davis replied in further support of the amended petition. Docket Item 18. This Court previously has held that due process requires that a neutral decisionmaker consider alternatives to detention before denying bond to a noncitizen held in immigration detention even if the decisionmaker finds that the noncitizen poses a danger to the community. See, e.g., Hechavarria v. Whitaker, 358 F. Supp. 3d 227, 241-42 (W.D.N.Y. 2019). For the reasons that follow, this Court reaffirms that holding. Because there is no indication that the immigration judge who conducted Davis’s bond hearing considered alternatives to detention before ordering that Davis be detained, his continued detention violates due process. Davis therefore must be released unless he receives a bond hearing in which a neutral decisionmaker finds that his continued detention is justified by clear and convincing evidence. To make that finding, the neutral decisionmaker must consider whether alternatives to detention can reasonably address the government’s interest in detaining Davis. FACTUAL BACKGROUND2 Davis is a native of Jamaica. Docket Item 11 at 1. He was admitted into the United States as a lawful permanent resident in November 1989, and he has not returned to Jamaica since then. Id. at 2. Davis’s father became a naturalized United States citizen in November 1994, and Davis claims that he acquired citizenship under the former 8 U.S.C. §1432(a)(3) as a result of his father’s naturalization.3 Id. at
2, 8-9. Beginning in 2009, Davis was arrested, convicted, and sentenced for several criminal offenses, including driving under the influence, theft, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, strangulation, assault, and drug possession. Docket Item 15 at
