has also filed a petition<\/a>, according to court records. However, his lawyers have moved for the case to be kept under seal. Copies of his filing and supporting documents were not available.<\/p>\nThe filings make the same argument for both men: that they are currently being held in a form of indefinite detention that violates their Fifth Amendment rights to due process.<\/p>\n
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\u201cPetitioner is neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community,\u201d wrote Raed Gonzalez, an immigration lawyer representing both men.<\/p>\n
The filing calls Tirado and Rojas\u2019 detention \u201cexceptional,\u201d which Gonzalez wrote should enhance their argument that they should be released from detention. The petition describes the men as being survivors of an aggravated assault at the hands of the immigration agents who arrested them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who now administer his custody shot at him at close range,\u201d each filing says. \u201cThis situation puts petitioner at heightened risk for mental, emotional and even physical anguish as well as a particularly painful separation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The men are now material witnesses to the shooting and have applied for U visas, a temporary type of immigration document for certain crime victims, to allow them to stay in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cPetitioner was the victim of a violent crime at ICE\u2019s hand that put his very life in danger and witness to ICE\u2019s killing of his work colleague,\u201d Gonzalez wrote.<\/p>\n
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The petitions ask the federal court to take over the men\u2019s cases and to prevent them from being transferred away from the court\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
While Gonzalez argued that a judge should be able to consider both men\u2019s risk of flight and danger to the community, he said that ordering a bond hearing was \u201cno longer an adequate remedy\u201d and asked for the men to be released immediately.<\/p>\n
Witness applications for visas<\/p>\n
The applications for the visas include personal details about the men and show Harris County officials’ efforts to keep the men in the U.S. while the shooting is investigated.<\/p>\n
Tirado Pantoja, who turned 44 on Tuesday, has lived at a home in the Magnolia Park neighborhood since 2022. His application lists him as single, though other documents say he has a son with a common-law wife. A native of central Mexico, he entered the country without permission in Arizona in 1996.<\/p>\n
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Rojas Pliego, 51, lives in the Park Place neighborhood, southeast of Magnolia Park. He was born in Mexico City. His application lists him as divorced, with a common-law wife and multiple children. He entered the country by crossing the Texas-Mexico border in 1998.<\/p>\n
The filings note that the Harris County District Attorney\u2019s Office is the certifying agency for the U visas. Both men said they had provided voluntary statements about the shooting.<\/p>\n
A section of the application signed by a DA\u2019s office employee indicates the agency is investigating Salgado\u2019s shooting as a potential case of murder, manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide.<\/p>\n
Statements about the shooting<\/p>\n
Both men provided one-paragraph written statements about their perspectives on the shooting. The contents of the statements were previously reported.<\/p>\n
Tirado wrote that he was picked up at 6:30 a.m. and was in the van heading toward Interstate 10 when an ICE vehicle almost crashed into them. The close encounter startled the men and caused\u00a0Lorenzo, the driver, to jump onto a curb to turn around.<\/p>\n
Tirado wrote that ICE hit the van from behind before it turned onto Canal Street, where Salgado was shot. The statement claims that a shot was fired and the ICE agent who fired the shot \u201ccame and switched guns\u201d with another agent.<\/p>\n
Rojas wrote that the chase happened after the group stopped to pick up water and ice. At one point, Salgado thought that he had lost the agents, Rojas wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of nowhere, they suddenly cornered us and we told Lorenzo to stop the van, but they had already fired once,\u201d Rojas wrote. \u201cWhen Lorenzo stopped the van, the officer shot him anyway and with the van stopped they used violence to pull him out while he was already wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rojas wrote that the immigration agents were only ever at the sides of the van, not behind or in front of it.<\/p>\n
Federal officials have confirmed only that an agent fired one shot, which mortally wounded Salgado. Two weeks after the shooting, authorities have not released a detailed timeline of when the chase began, said how many shots were fired or named the immigration agents who were involved.<\/p>\n
The shooting is being investigated by the DHS Office of Inspector General. The FBI has also handled parts of the investigation.<\/p>\n
No hearings have been set in connection with the petitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Protestors gather at Evan Chew Park to protest the killing of Lorenzo Salgadodo Araujo and Immigration and Customs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-381233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}