A federal court has ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to release a key witness in the killing of a Mexican national by an immigration agent in Houston.
Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego was one of three men riding to work in a van July 7 when its driver, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, was fatally shot during a traffic stop by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The high-profile murder was amplified when an ICE agent fatally shot immigrant Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero in his vehicle in Biddeford, Maine, six days later, on July 13. Both cases sparked demands for investigations by Congress and other government officials, in part because DHS confirmed neither man was the target of enforcement actions.
U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison on July 27 ordered immigration authorities to release Rojas Pliego within 48 hours and to set him free in a public space in or around Houston. ICE also is required to notify attorneys of the time and place of his release at least three hours beforehand.
The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit Rojas Pliego filed against DHS over his incarceration at ICE’s Joe Corely Processing Center in Conroe, Texas. The Mexican citizen entered the country without authorization in 1998, has no criminal record and is the father of multiple U.S.-citizen children and stepchildren.
Keith Ellison
“Petitioner argues, among other claims, that his mandatory detention violates his Fifth Amendment right to due process of law. The court agrees,” Ellison wrote. “The Due Process Clause does not permit the government to ‘detain any noncitizen, no matter how long they have actually lived in the United States, for any length of time, without any individualized justification, (merely because) that person initially entered the country without lawful admission.’”
The “severity” of Rojas Pliego’s “ongoing unconstitutional deprivation” also demands an immediate release, Ellison added. “The court agrees with other courts in the Fifth Circuit and elsewhere which have found immediate release appropriate in the face of similar ongoing deprivations of liberty.”
Rojas Pliego’s release is highly anticipated because he was eyewitness to an incident in which ICE agents were not wearing body cameras when one of them shot Salgado Araujo as he sat in his vehicle.
DHS has claimed the immigrant “refused to follow multiple verbal commands and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer, resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense.”
Sean Teare
However, CBS News reported Rojas Pliego and another passenger gave written statements that agents were deployed on both sides of the van, not in front of it. “Rojas Pliego described the government’s account as ‘a lie.’”
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare in Houston said he is “more than prepared” to prosecute ICE personnel if criminal wrongdoing caused the death of Salgado Araujo. Teare said his office certified temporary visa requests from Rojas Pliego and the other two immigrants in an effort to ensure they are not deported during the investigation.
Ellison also blocked Rojas Pliego’s deportation due to the prolonged length of time the proceedings could take in light of his potential role as a witness in Salgado Araujo’s death.
“He may also be eligible to pursue cancellation of removal on the basis that he has been ‘physically present in the United States for a continuous period of not less than 10 years,’ ‘has been a person of good moral character during that period,’ has not been convicted of a disqualifying criminal offense, and has U.S. citizen relatives who would suffer ‘exceptional and extremely unusual hardship’ in his absence.”
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