## Facts

- In 1980, Cuba allowed more than 100,000 people to leave for the United States during the Mariel Boatlift, including prisoners released from Cuban custody.
- Pedro Rodriguez Fernandez, a Cuban national and former Cuban prisoner, arrived in the United States during that migration.
- After arrival, U.S. immigration officials detained Fernandez and transferred him to the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, a maximum-security federal prison.
- Fernandez was not convicted of violating any United States criminal law, and his confinement was tied to civil immigration custody rather than a criminal sentence.
- Immigration authorities treated Fernandez as an excludable alien, initiated exclusion proceedings, and entered an exclusion and deportation order; Fernandez waived administrative appeal.
- The United States could not carry out deportation because Cuba refused to accept Fernandez’s repatriation.
- Despite the lack of any realistic timetable for removal, the government continued to confine Fernandez in maximum-security prison conditions for an indefinite period.
- No hearing was held to decide whether Fernandez should be classified as a flight risk or a danger to the community, and the record did not reflect individualized findings justifying maximum-security penal confinement.
- Fernandez filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 against George C. Wilkinson, the Leavenworth warden, challenging the lawfulness of his continued detention as arbitrary under customary international law.

## Issues

1. Whether the Attorney General’s authority to detain an excludable alien pending deportation permits indefinite confinement in a maximum-security federal penitentiary when deportation is not reasonably foreseeable.
2. Whether continued, prison-like detention without an individualized determination of flight risk or dangerousness is arbitrary and unlawful.
3. Whether customary international law norms prohibiting arbitrary detention are part of U.S. law and limit executive discretion in immigration detention absent a clear contrary statutory command.

## Decision

- The court granted the writ of habeas corpus.
- The court held that Fernandez’s indeterminate confinement in a maximum-security federal prison, with no reasonably foreseeable deportation and no individualized risk hearing, was arbitrary and unlawful.
- The court concluded that the Attorney General’s continued use of maximum-security penal confinement under these circumstances amounted to an abuse of discretion.
- The court relied on customary international law prohibiting arbitrary detention as a governing constraint incorporated into federal law, and ordered Fernandez’s release from penal confinement subject to reasonable conditions the government could impose.

## Legal Principles

- Customary international law is part of federal law and may be applied by U.S. courts unless Congress has clearly directed a contrary result.
- Detention “pending deportation” must bear a reasonable relationship to the purpose of effecting removal; when removal is not realistically attainable, continued confinement becomes arbitrary.
- Civil immigration custody that is indefinite in duration and carried out under maximum-security penal conditions, without individualized findings, is not a valid routine incident of exclusion processing.
- Even where the political branches have broad authority over exclusion and custody of arriving aliens, habeas review remains available to prevent arbitrary confinement and abuses of delegated discretion.

## Conclusion

Fernandez v. Wilkinson held that the government could not keep a Mariel entrant in indefinite maximum-security penitentiary confinement when Cuba would not accept repatriation and no individualized process supported treating him as a flight or security risk; the district court granted habeas relief and ordered release from penal confinement subject to reasonable conditions.


Fernandez v. Wilkinson, 505 F. Supp. 787 (1980)