Senior Judge John Lungstrum, who serves on the federal bench in Kansas City, Kansas, has released more than 20 immigration detainees because immigration officials failed to justify continued detention after months of unsuccessful removal efforts.
Under the U.S. Supreme Court decision Zadvydas v. Davis, the government generally has 90 days to deport someone, with six months considered a reasonable maximum detention period. After that, the government must show deportation is likely in the foreseeable future.
That has caused the judge’s frustration and the releases, as first reported by the Topeka Capital-Journal.
Unreasonably indefinite detention
One of the cases involved Gerardo Reyna-Salgado, who was taken into immigration custody in December 2024 following a state conviction for domestic battery.
In a December 2025 ruling, Lungstrum wrote the standard had not been met in Reyna-Salgado’s case.
“Petitioner has now provided good reason to believe that there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future,” he wrote.
Lungstrum said there had been little effort to move the case forward.
“It appears that officials have not made any new attempts to remove petitioner in the last four months,” he wrote.
He also highlighted a key failure, writing that officials “have not even identified a country that they are actively investigating” for deportation.
The judge even used an exclamation to emphasize a point in the order.
“Have not even made the required 90-day custody determination… over eight months ago!”
He said that failure “belies any suggestion that officials have acted with diligence.”
Because of those issues, the judge concluded the detention had gone too far.
“Petitioner’s detention has become unreasonably indefinite,” Lungstrum wrote, ordering Reyna-Salgado released under supervision.
The judge also sharply criticized the lack of progress and detail from federal officials in another case.
No meaningful attempts
In one order, involving Georgian undocumented immigrant Irakli Zhuzhiashvili, the judge noted that immigration authorities had repeated the same claim that they attempted removal to three countries, again with no details concerning those attempts.
Once removal is no longer reasonably foreseeable, continued detention is no longer authorized by the statute,” Lungstrum wrote.
The court found that government officials had made no meaningful attempts to transfer Zhuzhiashvili. His detention, the judge said, had become indefinite and unlawful.
Emails submitted as evidence showed officials had acknowledged the lack of progress in finding a third country.
The court ordered immigration authorities to release Zhuzhiashvili last October under appropriate supervision.
Zach Boblitt reports on the Kansas Statehouse and government for Kansas Public Radio and the Kansas News Service. You can email him at zach.boblitt@ku.edu.
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