The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) authorizes the award of fees and other expenses to the prevailing party “in any civil action (other than cases sounding in tort) . . . brought by or against the United States . . . unless the court finds that the position of the United States was substantially justified.” The question in this case is whether EAJA’s phrase “any civil action” applies to a habeas action seeking relief from immigration detention.

Years ago, Kevin Isaac Montoya Palacios fled his home country of El Salvador with his family. In 2016, an immigration judge granted him withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture. Mr. Montoya Palacios lived peacefully in the U.S. for years until ICE abruptly detained him at a routine check-in in 2025. The government never claimed that Mr. Montoya Palacios was a threat or a flight risk. Instead, the government inexplicably held him because his case was being considered by the government of Mexico for third-country removal.

Mr. Montoya Palacios filed a habeas petition in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland arguing that his detention was unlawful, and the court agreed and ordered him released. However, the court held that the federal government was not required to pay his legal fees because in the Fourth Circuit, habeas actions are not considered “civil actions” under the EAJA. After the Court of Appeals affirmed, Mr. Montoya Palacios asked the Supreme Court to hear his case, and the Court agreed to do so.

In September 2026, CAC filed an amicus brief in support of Mr. Montoya Palacios, explaining that the EAJA applies to habeas actions. Our brief makes two main points.

First, the EAJA is a waiver of the federal government’s sovereign immunity, and the decision whether to waive the federal government’s sovereign immunity belongs to Congress alone. Democratically accountable leaders in Congress—more so than judges—are well positioned to reconcile competing interests and make the nuanced policy considerations that go into a waiver of a sovereign immunity. Thus, the Supreme Court has repeatedly explained that courts should not second-guess Congress’s decision to waive immunity through an unduly narrow construction of a statute or by imposing a “magic words” requirement on a statute. This makes sense not only as a matter of statutory interpretation—courts must follow what the law says—but also as a matter of separation of powers.

Second, in accordance with these principles, the Supreme Court should respect Congress’s unambiguous waiver of sovereign immunity in the EAJA, authorizing fees and costs in “any civil action,” including habeas. In 1980, when Congress enacted the EAJA, it was firmly established that the legal term of art “civil action” included “all types of actions other than criminal proceedings.” And the EAJA’s use of “any” makes clear that “civil action” should be understood to cover every type of civil action, not just some types. Though the EAJA spells out a narrow exemption for “cases sounding in tort,” this only underscores that if Congress wanted to create an exception for habeas, it knew how to do so. Habeas actions are thus unequivocally “civil actions” within the meaning of the EAJA, notwithstanding their somewhat unique features. It is especially obvious that the EAJA should apply in Mr. Montoya Palacios’s case because he sought relief from civil immigration detention (as opposed to incarceration for a criminal offense) in his habeas petition. Given the lack of ambiguity in the EAJA, there was no reason for the court below to put a thumb on the scale in favor of immunity, contorting the meaning of the statute that Congress wrote.