U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta ordered David Antonio Aviles Perez released from federal custody in California after five months without a bond hearing. The ruling sent a man described as wanted for murder in El Salvador out of immigration detention and into a fight over whether officials had done the individualized review the law requires.
California custody order
Judge Jinsook Ohta found that immigration officials held Aviles Perez for five months without deciding whether he posed a danger to the public or a flight risk. That meant the government kept him in custody without the kind of individualized determination that usually decides whether a detainee stays jailed while removal proceedings continue.
Aviles Perez had been held in federal immigration custody in California before Saturday’s order. The case has become unusually sensitive because prosecutors in El Salvador described him as a notorious MS-13 gang member known as “the witch,” and because the dispute now turns on detention procedure rather than the underlying accusations alone.
DHS and Markwayne Mullin
On Saturday, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the release put the public in danger. Mullin said, “This radical activist judge has put American lives at risk by releasing a wanted murderer” and added, “This is now the SECOND time this dangerous illegal has been released back onto the streets in California.”
The clash is sharper because the custody decision did not turn on the El Salvador case file alone. It turned on whether immigration officials could keep Aviles Perez locked up for months without first holding a bond hearing and making a person-specific assessment of danger and flight risk.
El Salvador murder case
Prosecutors in El Salvador tied Aviles Perez to a 2014 gang killing in La Unión. Prosecutors said Aviles Perez and another MS-13 member chased a man through a mountainous area, while fellow gang members forced the victim to stop and kneel, held him by the shoulders, and watched as the two men shot him in the chest, back and face before fleeing.
Those allegations matter in the U.S. custody fight because they explain why DHS treated the case as a public-safety issue. They also explain why the release order drew immediate political heat: the government’s position was that a wanted murderer should not have been freed, while the court found immigration officials had not completed the detention review they were required to make before holding him for five months.
For now, the practical result is simple: Aviles Perez is no longer being held in federal custody in California. The unresolved issue is the government’s next move after a judge ordered his release despite the murder allegations and the DHS warning that the decision put the public at risk.
