{"id":390222,"date":"2026-07-29T06:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/390222\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T06:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:02:08","slug":"federal-judge-orders-release-of-witness-jose-trinidad-rojas-pliego-to-houston-ice-shooting-of-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/390222\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge orders release of witness, Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, to Houston ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON — A federal judge has ordered the release of a witness to the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo<\/a> by federal immigration officers during a traffic stop in Houston.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison issued the order releasing Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego on Monday, one week after blocking the federal government from deporting him.<\/p>\n

Rojas Pliego, who is currently being held at the Montgomery ICE Processing Center in Conroe, Texas, was on his way to work on July 7 when federal immigration officers stopped the vehicle in which he was a passenger. ICE officers fired shots at the vehicle, killing the driver, Salgado Araujo.<\/p>\n

Since the shooting, Rojas Pliego has been in custody “without an individualized bond determination.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Given the severity of this ongoing unconstitutional deprivation of Petitioner’s liberty, the Court concludes that immediate release from custody is required,” Judge Ellison wrote in his order.<\/p>\n

ICE said in a statement that Araujo “weaponized his vehicle” and tried to run over an officer during the stop, prompting the officer to fire their weapon “in self-defense.”<\/p>\n

“The driver was struck, and emergency services were immediately contacted. The driver was transported to the hospital, where he passed away from his injuries,” ICE said.<\/p>\n

Tirado Pantoja has been in the country since 1996 and has a son and stepdaughter who are both U.S. citizens. He does not have a criminal record, according to his habeas petition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judge Ellison ordered the government to release Rojas Pliego from custody within 48 hours.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ABC News Internet Ventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON — A federal judge has ordered the release of a witness to the fatal shooting of Lorenzo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[137395,13009,56,58,57,4491],"class_list":["post-390222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-137395","tag-abc-news","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390222","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=390222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}