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May 29, 2026 / 5:13 PM EDT

/ CBS News

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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. ICE did not respond to CBS News inquiries about Yugar-Cruz's release or about whether it is conducting any deportations to the DRC during the Ebola outbreak. Fifteen South Americans were deported to the DRC in mid-April, where they were sent to a hotel outside of Kinshasa, the capital city. Officials from the United Nations' migration agency told them they could either agree to go back to their home countries and stay in the hotel "as long as necessary" while they arranged their return, or remain in Congo and pay for their own living expenses, The New York Times reported. A U.S. federal judge ruled one woman, from Colombia, had been sent to Congo illegally and should be returned to the U.S., since authorities in Congo had said they could not accept her due to her medical conditions. Congo's Ebola outbreak is largely concentrated in its Ituri Province in the northeast, about 1,000 miles from Kinshasa.