C-M-M-: Why No Bond Amount Was Enough After Repeated Removals and Reentries

She was first ordered removed from the United States in 2001. She came back on four known occasions and was removed three more times. She had two convictions for illegal reentry. Twice she told immigration officers she was a United States citizen, and on her second illegal reentry attempt she presented her citizen daughter’s birth certificate and identification as her own. The last warning she received barred her from the country for 20 years.

An immigration judge saw that pattern and released her anyway, on a $15,000 bond plus alternatives to detention, meaning supervision that DHS could set in place of custody. The judge pointed to her family and community ties, a proposed sponsor, a fixed address and her application for protection. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appealed and won.

The Board of Immigration Appeals decided the case on June 13, 2025, in Matter of C-M-M-, 29 I&N Dec. 141 (BIA 2025), Interim Decision #4110. A three-member panel, in an opinion by Appellate Immigration Judge Goodwin, sustained DHS’s appeal, vacated (set aside) the judge’s March 19, 2025 custody order and ordered her detained without bond. The Attorney General designated the decision as precedent on July 8, 2025, so immigration judges must follow it in proceedings involving the same issues.

Her claim for protection from removal remained for the separate proceeding where it was pending. The ruling also carries three lessons: DHS can win even when it has the burden of proof, danger and flight risk are separate grounds, and strong family ties may not answer a long record of returning after removal.

DHS carried the burden and still won

Who must prove what is the first thing to check in any bond case. In the ordinary bond hearing under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), the person detained must show she merits release. Matter of Guerra, 24 I&N Dec. 37, 40 (BIA 2006), puts it that way, and Matter of R-A-V-P-, 27 I&N Dec. 803, 804 (BIA 2020), rejected an argument that DHS should bear that burden in a § 1226(a) hearing.

C-M-M- ran the other way. The Board asked whether DHS had proved danger by clear and convincing evidence, a demanding standard well above “more likely than not.” On flight risk, it said simply that DHS “met its burden.” So the woman lost a hearing in which the government had to make the case for detention.

In explaining why DHS had to prove danger, the Board cited Franco-Gonzalez v. Holder, No. CV 10-02211 (DTBx), 2013 WL 8115423 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 23, 2013). It described that decision as protecting “certain aliens” detained beyond 180 days unless DHS proved danger by clear and convincing evidence. For someone seeking the same burden of proof, start with the order that authorizes the hearing and sets the government’s burden.

That context matters because of the track she was on. She was in withholding-only proceedings, the limited process the Supreme Court has described for people whose old removal orders are reinstated after an unlawful return and who fear persecution or torture. Those proceedings decide only whether the person can be protected from removal to a particular country. Johnson v. Guzman Chavez, 594 U.S. 523, 526 (2021), held that such people are detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1231 and “are not entitled to a bond hearing while they pursue withholding of removal.” Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, 596 U.S. 573, 576 (2022), then held that § 1231(a)(6) does not require a six-month bond hearing with the burden on the government. A person on this track should not assume a hearing is available without identifying the order that provides it.

Two danger findings could not stand

Danger comes first in a bond case. Under Matter of Urena, 25 I&N Dec. 140, 141 (BIA 2009), a judge should set bond only after finding the person does not present a danger. A money bond exists to secure appearance. It does not buy off a safety concern.

The conviction here was recent and violent. She pleaded guilty to Aggravated Assault Causing Serious Physical Injury under Arizona law after pouring alcohol on her partner’s back and setting him on fire using a cigarette. He suffered burns to his head, face and torso and was placed in a medically induced coma. The Board also noted a lengthy criminal history that included three shoplifting convictions.

The Board reviewed the judge’s fact findings for clear error, meaning it would overturn them only if plainly mistaken, and reviewed the ultimate question of danger de novo, meaning afresh. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3) sets that division. Two of the judge’s reasons failed.

The first was a mistake about the sentence. The judge found that the criminal court had not ordered imprisonment and treated that as a strong sign that incarceration was unnecessary to protect the public. The criminal court had in fact ordered 7 months in county jail with credit for time served, then 4 years of supervised probation and no contact with the victim. The Board called the finding clearly erroneous.

The second concerned guilt. The judge reasoned that she “was attempting to act in self-defense, albeit imperfectly.” The Board answered that neither it nor an immigration judge may “look behind the fact of conviction and relitigate the ultimate question of an alien’s guilt or innocence,” citing its 1991 decision in Matter of Roberts, 20 I&N Dec. 294, 301. Her conviction record showed she pleaded guilty as the offender of domestic violence and was ordered, as part of her plea agreement, to pay for and participate in a domestic violence offender treatment program.

That limit concerns reopening guilt. It leaves room for the facts of the offense, because Matter of Siniauskas, 27 I&N Dec. 207, 208 (BIA 2018), lets a judge weigh “the specific circumstances surrounding the alien’s conduct.” A defense lawyer’s task is to explain those circumstances without arguing that the conviction was wrong.

Her promises did not close the gap. She said she would stay away from the victim and follow a release plan prepared by the Florence Project. The Board held those assurances did not outweigh her history, quoting Siniauskas for the point that “[A]ctions are a better indication of [her] future conduct than [her] assurances to the contrary.” It also identified two missing pieces: She had not taken responsibility, referring only to the “incident in 2023,” and she had submitted no evidence of enrolling in the court-ordered treatment program. Considering the whole record, the Board held DHS had shown she was a danger to the community.

The record of ignored warnings outweighed family ties

A danger finding would ordinarily have ended the bond question under Urena. The Board went on and decided flight risk too, which is why the decision has separate value. Flight risk is the chance a person will not come to hearings or, if she loses, will not surrender for removal.

The judge had already found a pattern of “circumventing lawful, safe, and orderly immigration procedures.” The dispute was over remedy. In the judge’s view, her extensive family and community ties, proposed sponsor, fixed address and application for relief weighed heavily against flight, and $15,000 with alternatives to detention would be enough. Those were the judge’s reasons.

The Board disagreed about the remedy. It set out the history: the 2001 order, four known reentries, three more removals, warnings that she could not return for a set period of years, two illegal reentry convictions and two false claims of citizenship. She had admitted to an officer that she knew presenting herself as a citizen or using a citizen’s documents to try to enter was illegal. Guerra, at page 40, lists a person’s history of immigration violations, attempts to flee or escape authorities and manner of entry among the factors a judge may weigh, and a judge may give one factor more weight than another if the decision is reasonable.

The conclusion is stated in strong terms. DHS had shown that the applicant’s history made her a significant flight risk, such that “no monetary bond, even if coupled with alternatives to detention, would be sufficient to ensure the applicant’s appearance at future immigration hearings and, if necessary, her surrender for removal from this country.” The final clause matters. Showing she would attend hearings was not enough if the record suggested she would not leave after losing.

A pending fear claim counted for little

The judge counted her application for relief in her favor. The Board gave it one sentence: She was in withholding-only proceedings “and her eligibility for relief is speculative.”

Two citations explain the logic. Matter of Andrade, 19 I&N Dec. 488, 490 (BIA 1987), reasons that a person likely to win relief has more reason to appear than one who is not. R-A-V-P-, at page 806, says eligibility for asylum can be difficult to establish and that a judge may consider how likely the application is to succeed. That passage spoke of asylum, in a § 1226(a) case where the detained person carried the burden. C-M-M- applied the idea to fear-based relief generally, in a case where DHS carried it.

Withholding is also a limited prize. Guzman Chavez, at pages 531–32, explains that it bars removal only to a particular country and leaves DHS free to remove the person elsewhere. A filed application alone gives a judge little to rely on. Evidence of how strong the claim is does more.

Where this decision sits among the bond cases

Three Board bond decisions address three different problems. Siniauskas was about danger only. The respondent carried the burden, and the judge had not found him a flight risk, so family ties, which generally do not reduce danger, did not help. Dobrotvorskii, 29 I&N Dec. 211 (BIA 2025), was about flight risk only. DHS carried the burden under a different injunction, and the man lacked family ties and had recently arrived.

C-M-M- is the case where the ties were there. The judge credited family, community, a sponsor and an address. DHS carried the burden on both grounds. The Board still ordered detention without bond because the record showed years of returning after removal and lying to get in.

What a California reader should take from it

Expect DHS and immigration judges to cite this decision, and be ready to compare records. The Board’s flight-risk conclusion rested on an “extensive and lengthy history of immigration law violations,” including multiple removals, illegal reentry convictions, false citizenship claims and misuse of a daughter’s documents. Its danger finding rested separately on a recent violent conviction. A person with one old removal or a single unlawful entry presents a different set of facts under the same factors.

The Ninth Circuit authority the Board cited supplies a useful limit, and the Board’s parenthetical leaves it out. The Board cited Singh v. Holder, 638 F.3d 1196, 1205 (9th Cir. 2011), for the idea that a final removal order is a factor in assessing flight risk. The full sentence in Singh goes further: “Although this is a relevant factor in the calculus, it alone does not constitute clear and convincing evidence that Singh presented a flight risk justifying denial of bond.” Singh involved a bond hearing the Ninth Circuit had required for prolonged detention, and its footing has weakened. Rodriguez Diaz v. Garland, 53 F.4th 1189, 1201–02 (9th Cir. 2022), explained that the Supreme Court has rejected the implied statutory right behind those hearings and expressly left open how much of that line of cases survives. It also held that, in that case, due process did not require a second hearing with the burden on the government for a man held under § 1226(a) throughout. In C-M-M-, the Board cited Franco-Gonzalez when applying DHS’s danger burden. Anyone relying on a government burden should identify the order or other authority that provides it.

The next step depends on the authority governing custody. Where that authority or the hearing order permits another custody redetermination by an immigration judge, a new request requires a written showing that circumstances “have changed materially,” under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(e). Our guide to proving a material change explains that comparison. Proof of enrolling in court-ordered treatment could be the kind of new fact worth presenting, though whether it suffices would depend on the record.

A federal habeas petition is a court challenge to the legality of detention. Martinez v. Clark, 124 F.4th 775, 783–85 (9th Cir. 2024), held that a Board finding of danger, in a hearing ordered under the Due Process Clause, is reviewable but only for abuse of discretion, a deferential standard under which a court cannot reweigh the evidence. The Board in Martinez had not reached flight risk, so the opinion addressed danger. In our reading, a habeas petition has the best footing when it identifies a legal error, such as the wrong burden or a misstated record, and not just a different view of the same facts.

What to gather if DHS relies on this decision

• The order that created the hearing. Find out whether the hearing comes from § 1226(a), a class injunction or a habeas order. That document usually decides who carries the burden and at what level.
• A dated immigration timeline. List every order, removal, reentry, warning and statement to an officer. Note how recent each one is and what document proves it. C-M-M- turned on repetition after warnings, so gaps and age matter.
• The actual criminal judgment. Read the sentence, probation terms and plea documents. The judge’s error here was misreading the sentence. Explanations should fit the conviction, not contest it.
• Proof of compliance, not promises. Bring enrollment records, attendance records and payment receipts for any court-ordered program. Speak with counsel before making any statement about the offense, especially if criminal consequences remain open.
• A sponsor and relief file. Pair the sponsor’s written commitment with proof of address, status and ability to help, as Dobrotvorskii shows. Add what makes the protection claim likely to succeed, including any favorable reasonable-fear finding, the asylum officer’s screening decision that sends a case on to an immigration judge.