Case: 17-41212 Document: 00514984485 Page: 1 Date Filed: 06/05/2019 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals No. 17-41212 Fifth Circuit FILED June 5, 2019 GERMAN HERNANDEZ NAJERA, Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Plaintiff - Appellant v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant - Appellee Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Before SMITH, BARKSDALE, and HO, Circuit Judges. JAMES C. HO, Circuit Judge: German Hernandez Najera, a foreign national from Honduras, claims that he was falsely imprisoned by federal immigration authorities. The district court entered summary judgment for the United States. We affirm. I. Najera first entered the United States in 1998. He received Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in 2000. 1 1 TPS allows eligible persons from certain countries designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security to live and work temporarily in the United States, due to certain conditions in their home country such as ongoing armed conflict and environmental disaster. 8 U.S.C. § 1254a. See also 6 U.S.C. § 557 (transferring authority to designate TPS from the Attorney General to the Secretary). The Secretary first granted TPS to Honduras in 1999 Case: 17-41212 Document: 00514984485 Page: 2 Date Filed: 06/05/2019 No. 17-41212 In 2012, Najera left the United States, without permission from federal immigration authorities, to visit his parents in Honduras. He returned to the United States about seven months later, at a place other than one designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security. At that time, Border Patrol agents arrested him and sent him to the McAllen Border Station for further processing. There, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a warrant of arrest and notice to appear and served Najera with these documents while he was in custody. See 8 C.F.R. § 287.5(e)(2) (listing the immigration officers, including certain CBP officers, authorized to issue arrest warrants). CBP charged Najera with being illegally present in the United States, subject to removal, under § 212(a)(6)(A)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. CBP held Najera from the time of his initial arrest until his transfer to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 17, 2013. ICE held Najera in custody for twenty-three days, while awaiting confirmation that Najera’s criminal history was clear and that his TPS was still current. On July 10, 2013, ICE released Najera with instructions to report to the ICE office in Fairfax, Virginia, on July 31, 2013. ICE filed the notice to appear with the Arlington Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia, on July 12, 2013—two days after his release. Najera filed this suit in the Eastern District of Virginia under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), claiming, inter alia, false imprisonment. The court transferred the claims arising out of the events that took place in Texas to the Southern District of Texas, where the district court granted summary judgment to the United States on all claims. after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch. See Designation of Honduras Under Temporary Protected Status, ...
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