David Antonio Aviles Perez is 35 years old, a convicted killer, an MS-13 gang member, and he goes by the nickname "La Bruja" — "The Witch." ICE arrested him on March 26, 2026, in San Diego after months of tracking a man who was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in an El Salvador prison for aggravated homicide.
A Biden-appointed federal judge just let him walk.
U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta, sitting in the Southern District of California, ordered Perez released on August 26 after ruling that ICE had detained him for approximately five months without providing what she deemed a proper individualized dangerousness determination. Perez had filed a habeas corpus petition on August 17. Nine days later, the judge sided with the killer over the agents who caught him.
The backstory on Perez would be funny if it weren't so dangerous. He entered the United States illegally on December 29, 2013. Seven months later, in July 2014, his fellow MS-13 member Ismael Enrique Mendoza Flores participated in the execution-style murder of a man in Yucuaiquín, in El Salvador's La Unión department. Perez was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 20 years. He was, of course, already back in the U.S. by then.
Fast forward to August 2023. Perez was arrested in Monterey, California — this time for wielding a machete. Not exactly the behavior profile of a man who poses no danger to the community. And yet here we are, watching a federal judge weigh the paperwork technicalities of his detention against the small matter of him being a gang-affiliated murderer with a machete habit.
Judge Ohta's reasoning was clinical. "The government has offered no evidence that it detained him after considering those facts and making an individualized determination of his danger to the public or flight risk," she wrote. Translation: ICE didn't fill out the right form in the right order, so the convicted killer gets to leave.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was not clinical about it. "This radical activist judge has put American lives at risk by releasing a wanted murderer," Mullin said. He pointed out that "this is now the SECOND time this dangerous illegal has been released back onto the streets in California."
Mullin didn't stop there. "Because sanctuary politicians want to play politics from the bench, innocent Americans are in danger," he added. That's the DHS Secretary calling a sitting federal judge a sanctuary politician. That's where we are now.
The "due process" objection from the bench sounds reasonable if you strip away every piece of context. A man convicted of murder. A man who entered the country illegally. A man arrested with a machete three years ago. A man whose gang — MS-13 — has been designated by the federal government as one of the most violent criminal organizations operating on American soil. Judge Ohta looked at all of that and decided the real problem was a paperwork gap in ICE's detention rationale.
This is the pattern. ICE does the field work. Agents track a target for months, coordinate across jurisdictions, and make the arrest. Then the case lands in front of a Biden-appointed judge in California, and the legal system becomes an escape hatch. Not because the facts are in dispute. Not because the man isn't dangerous. Because a procedural box wasn't checked to the satisfaction of someone who will never have to live next door to a man nicknamed "The Witch."
RedState's Kyle Becker reported on the case, and the details are worth sitting with. A 20-year sentence for aggravated homicide. A machete arrest. An MS-13 membership. Five months of detention. And a federal judge who looked at that file and saw a due process violation.
When the system works this hard to undo itself, the question isn't whether ICE can catch them. It's whether catching them even matters.