Judge orders witness to Houston ICE shooting released from detention

By Uriel J. García, The Texas Tribune
August 25, 2026

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered immigration officials to release Daniel Tirado Pantoja, one of the three passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was fatally shot by an immigration officer in Houston last month.

Tirado Pantoja “has no criminal history, is not a flight risk, and does not otherwise pose a danger to the community,” U.S. District Judge Alfred H. Bennett wrote in his order. He added that holding him without justification “violates his right to procedural due process.”

The judge also said immigration officials need to release Tirado Pantoja within 48 hours and to inform him of the time and location of his release three hours before. He also ordered that immigration officials cannot detain him again unless they can prove to an immigration judge that he is a flight risk or a danger to the community.

On the morning of July 7, Salgado Araujo picked up his brother Víctor and their fellow workers, José Trinidad Rojas Pliego and Tirado Pantoja, and headed to a construction job in his van. Two unmarked ICE vehicles started following them through Magnolia Park, a heavily Latino Houston neighborhood.

ICE initially said in a statement that Salgado Araujo rammed their vehicles as he tried to flee and the officers shot in self-defense. But the other three men in the van later said Salgado Araujo never tried to hit the officers after and instead, ICE vehicles struck them from behind and the side before one of the agents fired, striking Salgado Araujo in the stomach.

A different federal judge ordered the release of Rojas Pliego on July 29. Meanwhile, Salgado Araujo’s brother, Víctor, is still being held by immigration officials in a detention center in Conroe, north of Houston.

Immigration officials took the three men into custody shortly after the shooting, saying they were undocumented immigrants from Mexico. The Trump administration is still seeking to deport them.

“Courts in the Southern District of Texas have held that the continued detention of a noncitizen who has no criminal history and has not been shown to be a flight risk or danger to the community violates procedural due process,” Bennett wrote. “The Court sees no reason to reach a different conclusion here.”

The name of the ICE officer who fired has not been released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has said it is investigating the shooting.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.