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, Newsweek reported on Thursday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled on Wednesday in the case of Kaveh Abedi, an Iranian national, Newsweek said.
Source: Newsweek, via BizToc
Law360 reported the same ruling differently in emphasis: a split Tenth Circuit panel ruled that a district court erred in denying Abedi's habeas petition, holding that district courts have authority to review the legality of an immigrant's detention separately from any challenge to a final order of removal.
Source: Law360 — Immigration
The six-month figure comes from the Supreme Court's Zadvydas framework, under which detention of a person subject to a final removal order for up to six months is presumptively reasonable while removal is arranged. In Abedi's earlier district-court case in Kansas, the court denied his petition on October 6, 2025, reasoning that because he had been re-detained in June 2025, less than four months had passed and his detention remained presumptively reasonable — the very restart approach the appeals court has now rejected, according to Newsweek's report.
Source: U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, Abedi v. Carter (Oct. 6, 2025)
Court records in that earlier case state Abedi is a native and citizen of Iran who, after a 2002 California drug conviction, was granted deferral of removal to Iran and released in December 2002 on an order of supervision. Officials revoked that release and took him back into custody in June 2025, records state. He has challenged that re-detention through habeas petitions ever since.
On the reporting available, the ruling limits the government's ability to treat every re-detention as a brand-new six-month period, and confirms a detainee can ask a district court to test the detention itself even when the removal order is final. The full opinion's exact scope will govern how widely it applies across the Tenth Circuit.
What is solid
- The Tenth Circuit ruled Wednesday in Abedi's case, per Newsweek and Law360.
- Newsweek: the court rejected restarting the six-month clock on re-detention.
- Law360: a split panel held the district court erred in denying the habeas petition and that detention legality can be reviewed separately from the removal order.
What is only claimed
- The two reports emphasise different parts of the ruling; the full opinion text was not reviewed for this story, so no broader holding is claimed here.
- What happens to Abedi personally next — release or continued detention — was not stated in the reports reviewed.