How loopy is the US immigration enforcement system? An El Salvadoran man alleged to be a member of the Surenos gang residing in Los Angeles who was convicted of homicide and different violent crimes is being shielded from deportation by the Trump administration due to a December 2024 Biden Division of Justice ruling defending the killer from being despatched again to El Salvador over fears of torture, and a 2025 nationwide injunction by a federal decide delaying deputations to 3rd celebration international locations.
Fox Information reporter Invoice Melugin filed a stunning report after doing a ride-along with Homeland Safety brokers after they went to arrest Alexander Alfredo Palacios Guevara on a deportation order.
Guevara didn’t resist arrest. He shocked unaware brokers and Melugin when he informed them as he was being led into an ICE detention heart, “I’ve CAT, I’ve CAT,” shorthand for DCAT, Deferral of Elimination below the Conference In opposition to Torture safety from deportation.
Guevara defined, “I simply obtained CAT on December the 18th of final yr by the BIA. You may name my lawyer.”
Requested by Melugin if he was a convicted assassin, Guevara responded, “I’m free.”
ICE confirmed Guevara’s protected standing and launched him later that day, solely to go choose him up the next day. He stays in custody as a menace to public security whereas the Trump administration works on deporting him.
DHS assertion given to Fox:
“This legal alien ought to by no means have been roaming the streets of Los Angeles. Not solely is he a member of the ruthless Surenos gang, however he additionally has a number of convictions for homicide, assault and rape or sexual abuse of a minor. A extremely uncommon Biden-era authorized resolution from December allowed this harmful legal to stay in American communities. Because of the management of President Trump and Secretary Noem, we’re eradicating public security threats because it at all times ought to have been.”
Melugin confirmed Guevara was granted DCAT standing by BIA, the Bureau of Immigration Appeals, on December 18, 2024.
The BIA is a part of the Justice Division. As such the DCAT order may be overruled by Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi or a federal decide in accordance with the BIA page at the DOJ:
The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) is the best administrative physique for deciphering and making use of immigration legal guidelines. The BIA is positioned at EOIR headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia. Typically, the BIA doesn’t conduct courtroom proceedings – it decides appeals by conducting a “paper assessment” of circumstances. On uncommon events, nonetheless, the BIA hears oral arguments of appealed circumstances, predominately at headquarters.
The BIA has been given nationwide jurisdiction to listen to appeals from sure selections rendered by Immigration Judges and by district administrators of the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) in all kinds of proceedings wherein the Authorities of the US is one celebration and the opposite celebration is an alien, a citizen, or a enterprise agency.
BIA selections are binding on all DHS officers and Immigration Judges until modified or overruled by the Lawyer Basic or a federal courtroom. Most BIA selections are topic to judicial assessment within the federal courts. Nearly all of appeals reaching the BIA contain orders of elimination and functions for aid from elimination. Different circumstances earlier than the BIA embody the exclusion of aliens making use of for admission to the US, petitions to categorise the standing of alien family for the issuance of desire immigrant visas, fines imposed upon carriers for the violation of immigration legal guidelines, and motions for reopening and reconsideration of choices beforehand rendered.
The BIA is directed to train its impartial judgment in listening to appeals for the Lawyer Basic. BIA selections designated for publication are printed in certain volumes entitled Administrative Selections Underneath Immigration and Nationality Legal guidelines of the US.
Video report posted by Melugin:
EXCLUSIVE: We had been with ICE & HSI Los Angeles as they arrested a Salvadoran alien w/ an energetic deportation order who has convictions for homicide & tried homicide in LA County, however ICE might not have the ability to deport him on account of a safety he obtained within the remaining days of the Biden admin.… pic.twitter.com/dpVJaINUBP
— Invoice Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 19, 2025
