Men in van give accounts of fatal Houston ICE shooting as they seek release from detention

Two men who saw an ICE agent shoot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo to death say they are being unlawfully held in ICE detention and have asked a federal judge to free them, according to court records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

Daniel Tirado Pantoja and Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, who were passengers in Salgado's work van on July 7, disputed the government's account of the shooting in statements submitted in the Southern District of Texas on Monday.

Both men filed petitions for writs of habeas corpus. The petitions start a process that could result in the men being released from an ICE detention center in Montgomery County. In an initial response to one of the petitions, a federal judge prevented ICE from deporting the man while the legal motions were pending.

MORE ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Key witness in ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo could face retaliation, court filing says

Salgado was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent following a chase through Houston's East End. The agents were trying to take Salgado and his passengers into custody, according to officials. The shooting happened on Canal Street, where two ICE vehicles boxed in Salgado's van.

A Department of Homeland Security statement said Salgado "weaponized" the van and tried to ram the agents' vehicles and portrayed the shooting as an act of self-defense. The agency's narrative has been disputed and questioned. In the new filings, Tirado and Rojas said there was no effort to run down agents.

"At no moment were the agents in front of the vehicle," Tirado wrote in a statement included in his filing. "Lorenzo put the vehicle in park as the agents were shooting."

Petition for release

Tirado and Rojas were two of the three men riding with Salgado to a construction job on the morning of the shooting. Neither was wounded in the encounter with ICE agents.

Like Salgado, the men have been in the United States for decades. The filings say neither has a criminal record. Both men submitted letters of support to the court vouching for their character in the hopes of being released.

Victor Salgado, Lorenzo's brother and the third passenger in the van, has also filed a petition, 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.

The 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.

"Petitioner is neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community," wrote Raed Gonzalez, an immigration lawyer representing both men.

The filing calls Tirado and Rojas' detention "exceptional," 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.

"Those who now administer his custody shot at him at close range," each filing says. "This situation puts petitioner at heightened risk for mental, emotional and even physical anguish as well as a particularly painful separation."

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.

"Petitioner was the victim of a violent crime at ICE's hand that put his very life in danger and witness to ICE's killing of his work colleague," Gonzalez wrote.

The petitions ask the federal court to take over the men's cases and to prevent them from being transferred away from the court's jurisdiction.

While Gonzalez argued that a judge should be able to consider both men's risk of flight and danger to the community, he said that ordering a bond hearing was "no longer an adequate remedy" and asked for the men to be released immediately.

In a order that became public Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison ordered the Department of Homeland Security to respond to the petition. Ellison also barred ICE from deporting Rojas while the petition was pending. It was unclear if a similar order had been issued in Tirado's case.

Witness applications for visas

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.

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.

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.

The filings note that the Harris County District Attorney's Office is the certifying agency for the U visas. Both men said they had provided voluntary statements about the shooting.

A section of the application signed by a DA's office employee indicates the agency is investigating Salgado's shooting as a potential case of murder, manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide.

Statements about the shooting

Both men provided one-paragraph written statements about their perspectives on the shooting. The contents of the statements were previously reported.

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 Lorenzo, the driver, to jump onto a curb to turn around.

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 "came and switched guns" with another agent.

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.

"Out of nowhere, they suddenly cornered us and we told Lorenzo to stop the van, but they had already fired once," Rojas wrote. "When 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."

Rojas wrote that the immigration agents were only ever at the sides of the van, not behind or in front of it.

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.

The shooting is being investigated by the DHS Office of Inspector General. The FBI has also handled parts of the investigation.

No hearings have been set in connection with the petitions.

Subscribe

Read this story on houstonchronicle.com