A federal judge in San Diego ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release a Salvadoran man convicted in absentia of aggravated murder.
The court found that officials held him for months without the individualized custody review that due process required.
The ruling is a detention-process decision. It does not overturn Aviles Perez’s Salvadoran murder conviction, clear him of that offense, or find that he poses no danger.
U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta on August 26, 2026, granted the habeas petition of David Antonio Aviles Perez in Aviles Perez versus Blanche, case number 3:26-cv-04706, according to Habeas Dockets. The public docket shows the petition was filed on August 17, 2026, while he was held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center pending removal.
A minute order entered with the relief explains that the court treated the filing as a challenge to continued immigration detention without an individualized bond determination. Judge Ohta found that officials violated Fifth Amendment due process by continuing detention without deciding flight risk or danger to the public.
The minute order states that officials afforded Aviles Perez “no process before or after his detention,” while noting a prior conviction tied to a May 2023 fight that the government had not shown it used in an individualized custody determination. The written order requires release by 5 p.m. on August 27, 2026, an affidavit of release by 5 p.m. the next business day, and a bond hearing before any redetention during the removal case.
At that hearing the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that he is a danger to the community or such a flight risk that no amount of bond or alternative conditions of release “would suffice to ensure his future appearance,” and the immigration judge must consider financial circumstances and alternatives. The August 26, 2026, order also vacated the September 3, 2026, hearing and closed the district-court case; a status report was later filed on August 27, 2026.
In a September 5, 2026, statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Judge Ohta’s release order put the public at risk and described the judge as an “activist” jurist. Secretary Markwayne Mullin said, “This radical activist judge has put American lives at risk by releasing a wanted murderer.”
Mullin also said this was the second time Aviles Perez had been released back onto California streets. The department said ICE had arrested him on March 26, 2026, on an international warrant for aggravated murder in El Salvador and listed a 2023 California arrest history that included assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a controlled substance, and petty theft.
The September 5, 2026, release further said California authorities had previously released him after that 2023 arrest and that he had later been held in federal custody pending removal until the August 2026 court order. DHS said Aviles Perez entered the United States at an unknown date and location.
DHS later said he was released from federal custody after the order. The department’s public statement frames the dispute as a public-safety conflict over releasing a person it describes as a wanted murderer while removal and any compliant bond process remain unresolved.
On December 16, 2025, El Salvador’s Fiscalía General de la República published a release stating that David Antonio Avilés Pérez, alias “la bruja,” and Ismael Enrique Mendoza Flores, alias “calaco,” were each sentenced to 20 years for an aggravated homicide on July 2, 2014, in Yucuaiquín, La Unión.
The Fiscalía says proof at trial showed the two men killed a man at Cerro El Peche in the Palo Galán hamlet of canton La Cañada. Prosecutors say the defendants followed the victim and fired to make him stop.
The Fiscalía’s charging narrative says other subjects forced the victim to kneel and held him by the shoulders as the two defendants arrived. It says the victim was shot in the chest, back, and face before the attackers fled.
The Fiscalía says the sentence was imposed in the defendants’ absence and profiles both men as active MS-13 members. The December 16, 2025, date on the page is the publication date of that Fiscalía notice.
An earlier Department of Homeland Security release dated April 1, 2026, announced that ICE had arrested Aviles Perez in San Diego on March 26, 2026. The department said he faced an international warrant for aggravated murder in El Salvador and would remain in custody pending removal.
Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said ICE had arrested a person DHS described as a dangerous criminal illegal alien and MS-13 gang member wanted in El Salvador for murder. She said California sanctuary policies had allowed his release from jail after the 2023 arrest on assault with a deadly weapon, controlled-substance, and petty-theft charges.
The April 1, 2026, release again states that Aviles Perez entered the country at an unknown date and location. That agency account of entry differs from the federal court record’s summary of the petition, which says he entered on December 29, 2013, and had continuously resided in the United States since.
Salvadoran prosecutors separately describe a July 2, 2014, killing in El Salvador. The April announcement does not resolve those dated accounts and instead focuses on the March 2026 ICE arrest and planned removal custody.
As of the district court’s August 26, 2026, disposition, the habeas case is closed, the September 3, 2026, hearing is vacated, and any redetention during the removal proceeding is conditioned on a bond hearing that meets the order’s clear-and-convincing standard, financial-circumstances review, and alternatives-to-detention analysis. Respondents remain bound by the release, affidavit, compliance-declaration, and 48-hour redetention wait terms set in that order.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
