No Pseudonymity for Sex Offender Immigration Detainee Who Speculates He May Face Harm in Syria if Identified

From Alobid v. Marin, decided March 9, 2026 by Magistrate Judge Alka Sagar (C.D. Cal.), but just posted on Westlaw in the last couple of days:

Petitioner, an immigration detainee who is proceeding pro se, filed a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and also filed a Motion for Leave to Proceed Under a Pseudonym.

“As a general rule, ‘the identity of the parties in any action, civil or criminal, should not be concealed except in an unusual case, where there is a need for the cloak of anonymity.’” A party’s “use of [a] fictitious name[ ] runs afoul of the public’s common law right of access to judicial proceedings, and [Fed. R. Civ. P.] 10(a)’s command that the title of every complaint ‘include the names of all the parties[.]‘”

Nevertheless, the Ninth Circuit has “allowed the use of pseudonyms in exceptional cases where necessary ‘to protect a person from harassment, injury, ridicule or personal embarrassment.’” “When a party requests ‘Doe’ status, the factors to be ‘balance[d] … against the general presumption that parties’ identities are public information,’ are: ‘(1) the severity of the threatened harm; (2) the reasonableness of the anonymous party’s fears; and (3) the anonymous party’s vulnerability to such retaliation.’” The party seeking anonymity has the burden of proving it should be allowed to proceed anonymously.

Petitioner seeks to proceed anonymously because he is a convicted sex offender who believes he may face danger in his country of origin—Syria—if removed there. However, the nature of Petitioner’s criminal conviction is insufficient by itself to warrant Petitioner’s use of a pseudonym in these proceedings. See U.S. v. Stoterau (9th Cir. 2008) (“If the nature of Stoterau’s offense alone could qualify him for the use of a pseudonym, there would be no principled basis for denying pseudonymity to any defendant convicted of a similar sex offense. Such a significant broadening of the circumstances in which we have permitted pseudonymity is contrary to our long-established policy of upholding ‘the public’s common law right of access to judicial proceedings,’ and contrary to our requirement that pseudonymity be limited to the ‘unusual case.’”).

And while “‘retaliation from a foreign government is recognized by the Ninth Circuit and other district courts as a sufficient basis to proceed anonymously[,]‘” Petitioner’s conclusory and unsupported assertion that he may face danger if removed to Syria is insufficient to meet his burden of establishing he should be allowed to proceed anonymously in this action.

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