Judge upholds dismissal of criminal case against immigrant

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) — An undocumented immigrant purportedly connected to MS-13 on Wednesday may have lost his bid to forestall deportation to El Salvador.

U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton, a Ronald Reagan appointee, affirmed a magistrate’s ruling allowing the U.S. Department of Justice to drop weapons charges against Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, 24. That decision cleared the way for Villatoro Santos to be taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. He could possibly be flown back to his home country, El Salvador. But even as the court ruled, a lawyer for Villatoro Santos filed an emergency petition for writ of habeas corpus on his behalf.

Villatoro Santos was arrested during a raid on his mother’s home in Woodbridge, Virginia, on March 27 and charged with possession of a firearm by an alien illegally in the country. During a search of the man’s bedroom, officers found a 9-millimeter handgun, three additional firearms, ammunition and two suppressors. They also observed indicia of MS-13 association.

At the time, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi described Villatoro Santos as an East Coast leader of MS-13 and “one of the top three in the entire country.” She added, “He will not be living in our county much longer.”

Two weeks later, Bondi’s office filed a motion calling for dismissal of the weapons charge. A magistrate ruled that prosecutors could do that — but delayed the ruling to give Villatoro Santos’ legal team a chance to appeal.

Now, Villatoro Santos has had ample time to obtain counsel and mount an immigration case, said Alex Blanchard of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Virginia, during a brief hearing Wednesday.

Muhammad Elsayed, attorney for Villatoro Santos, argued that the government was dropping the charges in an attempt to facilitate the man’s unlawful removal. He challenged the court to determine whether the Department of Justice was acting in good faith. There may already be a plan in place to “simply whisk Mr. Villatoro Santos away,” he said.

The sister and mother of Villatoro Santos have attended hearings, but neither would comment on the case.

The case against Villatoro Santos surfaced as controversy swirls around the Trump administration’s use of wartime authority under the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly target and remove foreign nationals. Most notably, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador native who had been living in the U.S., was mistakenly sent to a prison in El Salvador. A Supreme Court order found that the White House had improperly deported him and that it was the government’s responsibility to facilitate his return. So far, that hasn’t happened.