TOPEKA, Kansas — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled on October 21 in Abedi v. Carter, No. 25-3179, that the federal government cannot restart the clock on immigration detention simply by releasing a person and later re-arresting him. The court held that the six-month presumption of reasonable detention recognised in Zadvydas v. Davis applies only to the first six months after the removal period begins; later detention requires an individual assessment, without a renewed presumption in the government's favour.

Source: CaseMine commentary on Abedi v. Carter, Tenth Circuit

The case concerns Kaveh Abedi, an Iranian citizen who came to the United States with his family in 1991 at age ten and received asylum. After a California drug-possession conviction, an immigration judge in September 2002 granted him deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture, and authorities released him under an order of supervision because they could not remove him. According to the opinion's account, he complied with supervision for more than twenty years, married a U.S. citizen, and in 2025 ICE approved the couple's move from California to Kansas.

Source: Cuba Headlines summary of the Tenth Circuit ruling

On June 23, 2025, ICE officers arrested Abedi outside his Kansas home. The government did not accuse him of violating his supervision conditions; it later said removal to a country other than Iran had become a possibility. A revocation notice promised a prompt informal interview, but no interview took place in the four weeks before he filed his first habeas petition, or in the roughly three months before a district court denied it.

The Tenth Circuit held that the revocation rules in 8 C.F.R. section 241.13 — not a different custody-review framework — governed the case, and that the unexplained four-week delay violated the requirement of a prompt interview at which Abedi could contest the grounds for re-detention. Because the rule protects liberty and due-process interests, the court said the violation justified relief without a separate showing that a timely interview would have led to release. The Kansas Reflector reported the decision on October 23 as a finding of a due-process violation in ICE's incarceration of an Iranian refugee in Kansas.

Abedi had already been released under supervision on February 25, 2026, through a second habeas case, so the ruling does not itself order a new release. Instead, it sets the rules for any future detention: no fresh six-month presumption on re-arrest, and the promised prompt interview must actually be prompt. The opinion was written by Judge McHugh.