CBS News reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has temporarily released Jose Yugar-Cruz, a South American man who had been awaiting deportation to the Democratic Republic of Congo, his attorneys said Friday.Yugar-Cruz was first detained after crossing the border in July 2024.
Six months later, an immigration judge ruled he was more likely than not to face torture in his home country and could not be sent back there.
ICE continued to detain him until late December 2025, when a federal judge ruled his detention was unlawful, but he was arrested again in April after Congo agreed to accept him.
On May 17, Yugar-Cruz was still detained in an Iowa jail when the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda a health emergency.
As of Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 suspected or confirmed cases and over 240 suspected or confirmed deaths, according to the WHO.
"Prior to the outbreak and despite protests in Minnesota and in Iowa, the Department of Homeland Security had refused to stop Yugar Cruz' deportation to the DRC or to consider relocation to another country and continent that would assure him a greater degree of safety as a victim of torture," his attorneys wrote in a press release.