India, July 22 -- A federal judge in Texas has temporarily barred US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego. Rojas Pliego is one of the key witnesses in the fatal shooting of Mexican immigrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE officer earlier this month in Houston.

US District Judge Keith P. Ellison issued an order on Monday preventing ICE from deporting Rojas Pliego without first obtaining the court's permission. The judge also prohibited immigration authorities from transferring him outside the Southern District of Texas while the court reviews his case.

The decision concerns one of the three construction workers who were travelling in the work van driven by Salgado Araujo when an ICE office...