Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and illegal immigrant, was released after being detained at the airport of a Texas border town Tuesday.

Vargas told authorities at the McAllen airport he was in the country illegally and did not have the proper documentation, according to CNN.

He had been in McAllen for a week to visit centers where illegal Central American immigrants were being held, and only after arriving did he become aware that he may have trouble leaving.

Vargas was brought to the U.S. from the Philippines when he was 12 and revealed his illegal status in 2011, two years after winning a Pulitzer for his coverage of the Virginia Tech school shooting.

"When I outed myself three years ago my goal is to say I am one of the 11 million people. I'm not asking for special treatment. I'm not asking for there to be any double standard -- the government is doing that," Vargas told CNN previously.

While passing through security at the airport with a Filipino passport, Vargas was cleared by a TSA agent, according to Huffington Post. It was only after he was questioned by a Border Patrol agent, and asked to produce a visa or government-issued ID -- which he didn't posses -- was he taken into custody.

After being released Tuesday, he was given notice to appear in immigration court.

Vargas said in a statement after his release, "Our daily lives are filled with fear in simple acts such as getting on an airplane to go home to our family. With Congress failing to act on immigration reform, and President Obama weighing his options on executive action, the critical question remains: how do we define American?"

This is the first time he has been detained by immigration officials since coming to the country illegally in 1993.