U.S. university student released amid tension over immigration policy

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- An undocumented California student on the U.S. western coast was released on Wednesday amid growing tensions between California state and the federal government over immigration policies, his lawyer tweeted.

Prerna P .Lal, lawyer of the 20-year-old Luis Mora, a law student of the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley), said she met Mora late Wednesday after she was released from more than half a month of custody in the hands of the U.S. immigration authorities.

Mora was arrested by immigration officers on Dec. 30 last year when he and his girlfriend were driving home from a birthday party and made a wrong turn at a border checkpoint near the U.S.-Mexican border in East San Diego County.

Lal said that Mora was released unconditionally from the Otay Mesa Detention Facility in Southern San Diego, just north of the U.S.-Mexican border.

"Law and justice prevailed today," Lal said of Mora's release earlier Wednesday.

Mora's release came amid heightened tensions between the U.S. federal government and California over immigration policies.

The immigration authorities under President Donald Trump's administration wants to tighten immigration policies and threatens to deport undocument immigrants from the United States, while California has declared itself a "sanctuary state" that offers protection to undocumented immigrants in the state.

Mora, one of the dreamers who is studying at UC Berkeley, is a strong advocate for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

Dreamers refer to a group of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children but currently protected by DACA.

DACA is an Obama-era amnesty policy which extends legal status to 800,000 illegal aliens who arrived in the United States in their childhood.

On Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a Senate committee hearing on the department' s operations that the Department of Justice is considering criminally charging state and local officials for implementing the so-called sanctuary policies.

Ealier this month, Thomas Homan, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said local and state elected officials should be charged with federal crimes for adhering to sanctuary policies.

The statements of the federal officials have further strained the relations between the federal government and California as well as its local counties and cities, which rebutted Homan's remarks as an "intimidation." Enditem