Univision reported he was released at an “undisclosed location” around 1 p.m.
Other videos showed Rojas visited a memorial for Salgado on Canal Street after his release.
U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison on Monday gave ICE 48 hours to release Rojas, after finding that his continued detention would violate his constitutional rights. The Justice Department had opposed his release.
In a statement posted on Instagram late Wednesday, attorney Hugo Balderas Ibarra said Rojas had been released without advanced notice that Ellison had told the government to provide. Balderas Ibarra asked the public to give Rojas privacy as he spends time with his family and mourns Salgado.
“The good news is that he is now reunited with his family,” Balderas Ibarra said. “The first thing he wanted to do was go pay tribute, pay respect to his former boss and his longtime friend.”
Rojas was one of three men riding in Salgado’s van on July 7. Salgado, a Mexican citizen who had been in United States for more than 30 years, was shot and killed by an immigration agent at the end of a chase through Houston’s East End. From their detention, Rojas and the other men have disputed claims by the government that Salgado “weaponized” the van and tried to hit the agents.
The witnesses have said that no agents were in the path of the van.
Rojas and the other men have applied for U visas, a type of temporary immigration status given to some crime victims and witnesses to crimes. Their applications were certified by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which is conducting an investigation into the shooting.
Like Salgado, Rojas had been in the U.S. without permission for decades and he had no criminal records. After he was arrested on the day of the shooting, he was charged with a civil violation for allegedly entering the country illegally and has been placed in deportation proceedings.
The two other men in the van — Victor Salgado Araujo and Daniel Tirado Pantoja — have also petitioned for their release from ICE detention.