Francisco Rodriguez-Guardado. (Photo: Rose Lincoln via ACLU)

In a major victory, MIT janitor Francisco Rodriguez-Guardado is being released from jail this week, his immigration attorneys said Wednesday afternoon.

“The government has informed us that Francisco will be released from ICE custody no later than 5 p.m. on Friday,” said John T. Bennett of the Goodwin Procter law firm, at 4:20 p.m. Wednesday, referring to the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigrations and Customs Enforcement division. “We are obviously very pleased with this result.”

Update on Dec. 21, 2017: Rodriguez-Guardado was released Thursday morning.

“Our whole family is overjoyed. His son has been wiggling with excitement to have his father home and the girls can’t wait for their dad to pick them up from school like he used to. Our family is whole again and we thank god,” said Rodriguez’s mother, Jesús (Yessi) Rodriguez, in a press release from his union.

Rodriguez filed an emergency plea Monday morning with the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston that he be released in time for the holidays.

The government had been scheduled to file its response to Rodriguez’s request by today, but instead filed a request for a time extension at 4:22 p.m. Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice referred inquiries to ICE, which has not yet responded.

Rodriguez, a father of four U.S. citizen children, is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology custodian who sought asylum in 2006 and has been legally allowed to remain in the United States since 2011, when his asylum application was denied. He has no criminal record, and his lawyers are fighting parallel battles in federal appeals courts that include reopening his asylum case in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.