Two of the three witnesses to the July 7 fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by a federal immigration officer have now been released from ICE custody.
Daniel Tirado Pantoja was set free on Wednesday, about a month after another witness, Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, was released. Attorneys representing the witnesses have said their Fifth Amendment rights to due process were violated and that their testimony is needed while independent investigations into the shooting are being conducted by Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare and the Texas Rangers.
“When I took Daniel and Jose’s cases back on July 8 after their detention following the tragic shooting of Lorenzo, I knew that this was something bigger than me,” lawyer Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said in a statement. “It was more than just getting these men released. It was about upholding the supreme law of the land and not standing idle as this government gets away with the racial profiling and killing of our people. This was about doing what was right. About doing what was just and getting these men the justice that they deserve. This is America. We all have a right to due process regardless of our immigration status, race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other innate characteristic.”
Balderas-Ibarra went on to say that he no longer represents Pantoja but is thankful that the man has been reunited with his family.
The witnesses were taken into custody immediately following last month’s shooting on Canal Street in Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood. Teare has filed for temporary “U visas” for the three men who were members of Araujo’s work crew and in his van when an ICE agent fired the deadly shots.
The shooting victim’s brother Victor Hugo Salgado was among the three witnesses and remains in ICE custody.
Lawyers for each of the witnesses have maintained that the men were immediately taken into ICE custody, charged with “being an alien present in the United States” and placed in removal proceedings before an immigration judge.
“This case is one of hundreds of similar petitions for habeas corpus that have come before this Court challenging DHS’ most recent interpretation of mandatory immigration detention,” U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison said in court documents when he ordered the release of Pliego.
An effort to secure temporary visas for the shooting witnesses continues, attorneys on the case have confirmed.
U visas can be granted for “victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental and physical abuse” and those who are able to assist law enforcement in an investigation, but they often take months or years to secure. KPRC reported Wednesday that Pantoja has an immigration hearing coming up in September.
Through their attorneys, the three witnesses have already disputed several assertions related to the July 7 shooting. ICE agents claimed that Araujo “weaponized his vehicle and tried to run over an officer,” but the witnesses say the officers were not in front of or behind the vehicle.
The officers were not wearing body cameras, nor did their vehicles have dash cams.
It’s possible that Araujo did not know the people attempting to stop his vehicle were federal agents, as they were in unmarked vehicles.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General is also investigating the shooting. To date, the federal government has not shared key evidence with Teare’s office, the district attorney has said, and the name of the officer who fired the fatal shot has not been released.
