José Serrano, who served as Ecuador's interior minister from 2012 to 2016 under former President Rafael Correa, was deported to Ecuador on Friday even though a U.S. immigration judge had suspended his removal under the Convention Against Torture. Serrano entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in May 2021 and applied for asylum five months later; ICE arrested him at his Miami home in August 2025 for overstaying his visa. He faces charges in Ecuador for allegedly orchestrating the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, and Judge Romy Lerner had denied his asylum claim in May while blocking his deportation over torture concerns.