Judge orders immigration officials to release key witness in Texas ICE shooting

Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego was one of three passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo when Salgado Araujo was shot by an ICE officer during a traffic stop.

HOUSTON — A federal judge on Monday ordered U.S. immigration authorities to release a key witness in the fatal shooting of a Mexican homebuilder by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Houston.

U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison ordered the release of Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego from ICE custody within 48 hours, after the judge previously blocked his deportation. Ellison agreed with Rojas Pliego’s argument that his detention violates his Fifth Amendment due process rights.

Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, an attorney for Rojas Pliego, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rojas Pliego was one of three passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo when Salgado Araujo was shot by an ICE officer during a traffic stop. All three passengers were taken into ICE custody.

The Department of Homeland Security said shortly after the July 7 shooting that Salgado Araujo had “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer,” and that the officer had fired in self-defense. But Rojas Pliego and another passenger wrote in statements submitted in court that the officers were to the sides of their van, never in front of or behind it. Rojas Pliego described the government’s account as “a lie.”