When will sufficient be sufficient?
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was heading to work early this week when he was shot and killed on a Houston avenue by ICE. Salgado Araujo, a development enterprise proprietor and beloved father of three U.S. residents that he put via school, had referred to as the world his house for 35 years and was within the strategy of working to realize authorized standing. He was 52.
A NORMAL WORKING DAY UNTIL, ‘THEY’RE KILLING ME’
“He began his day Tuesday as he did most days: waking at 5 a.m. earlier than the remainder of the town,” The Houston Chronicle reported. “His spouse cooked him breakfast and, at 5:50, he kissed her goodbye. He took his lunch and boots to his white work van, patted his canine and headed to choose up his development crew and drive out to the suburbs, the place they have been engaged on extra of the properties he’d spent his profession constructing.”
However he would by no means decide up his employees or arrive at his job web site that day. Salgado Araujo would grow to be the tenth particular person to be fatally shot by mass deportation brokers because the begin of the second Trump administration. Throughout a press convention, Ronaldo, one in all Salgado Araujo’s American citizen kids, stated he “didn’t find out about his father’s ultimate moments from a hospital or regulation enforcement. As an alternative, affirmation of his loss of life got here within the merciless type of movies on social media,” The Bulwark reported.
The son of the person shot and killed by ICE:I’m Ronaldo Salgado, the oldest son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. He ought to’ve been choosing up the final of his guys earlier than heading to complete up development. Unbeknownst to all of us, my dad had been shot inside his van by ICE brokers in unmarked automobiles.
— Headquarters (@headquartersnews.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T15:13:38.772Z
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s son: I’m calling for a full investigation into the occasions that transpired on July 7. He didn’t should be diminished to a headline of Mexican man shot and killed by ICE. He deserved to stay a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a husband, a father, and a job creator.
— Headquarters (@headquartersnews.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T15:26:05.733Z
“I acknowledged him instantly: not from his look, however from his voice crying on the street as he was bleeding out,” Ronaldo stated. “One witness instructed The Washington Publish that he heard a person—Lorenzo—gurgling and shouting ‘Me estan matando’—they’re killing me,” The Bulwark continued.
LIKE MINNEAPOLIS, ICE AGAIN BRINGS LAWLESS TERROR TO TOWN
Very similar to the rapid response that we noticed to the state-sanctioned killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, devastated Houstonians poured into the streets to mourn their neighbor. “A crowd of a whole lot marched in Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood 36 hours after a federal immigration officer shot and killed a person alongside that very avenue,” Houston Public Media reported.
There, Conchita Reyes, along side LULAC’s Houston chapter, shared a gut-wrenching assertion from Salgado Araujo’s household.
“Right here on Canal Road is the place my dad Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and bled out earlier than passing away,” Reyes learn. “He lay right here in ache and in worry for his life and with the worry of leaving his household behind. He didn’t should die. He deserved to take his employees to the job web site, end the homes, and return house to his loving spouse.”
Congresswoman @sylviagarcia.home.gov: “We’re demanding the total fact, the total footage, and an actual unbiased investigation. Lorezno’s household deserves solutions. Houston deserves solutions. And we won’t let DHS or ICE bury this, stall for time, or conceal behind the identical drained lies.”
— America’s Voice (@americasvoice.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T15:42:25.364Z
Reyes additionally referred to as for full accountability within the type of an unbiased investigation. Impartial truth-finding will likely be essential in acquiring justice for Salgado Araujo and his household, as a result of ICE wasted no time in dusting off the identical script it utilized in Minnesota, when federal authorities lied concerning the circumstances across the January 2026 shootings of Good and Pretti and claimed the 2 unarmed residents have been the precise aggressors. ICE is now claiming that Salgado Araujo rammed an company automobile, however no video has surfaced displaying that.
Officers launched comparable claims about Ruben Ray Martinez, who was shot lifeless by ICE in March 2025. “For practically a 12 months, DHS and the Texas Division of Public Security tried to hide ICE’s involvement within the capturing and lied concerning the circumstances, falsely claiming that Martinez deliberately struck an agent along with his automobile,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) stated in March. “The declare was later contradicted by video proof, launched solely after calls for by Members of Congress.”
OUR OWN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO COOPERATE
Following Good and Pretti’s deaths, federal authorities additionally impeded state investigators – a playbook they now look like repeating in Houston.
“The district lawyer in Harris County, Texas, stated Wednesday that federal authorities have sidelined native officers,” and is urging “eyewitnesses to come back ahead with their very own accounts, together with movies or photographs,” The Washington Publish reviews. And now the ICE Workplace of Skilled Accountability, an oversight department that investigates brokers’ misconduct, is sending threatening letters to Individuals who’ve expressed mistrust and anger on-line over the deaths of Good and Pretti. Little to no actual investigation by the federal authorities has been accomplished over these deaths.
The households of the detained males who have been within the van and the lifeless man are being represented by Juan Proano of LULAC. He tells me the households have been capable of contact the boys in detention.“They’re being pressured to signal self-deportation orders,” Proano tells me:newrepublic.com/article/2129…
— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T17:07:11.417Z
Federal authorities are additionally working to squash eyewitness accounts by pressuring three males who witnessed Salgado Araujo’s killing to self-deport, reviews The New Republic’s Greg Sargent. One of many three is the sufferer’s brother, Victor. “They’re being pressured to signal self-deportation orders,” Juan Proano, LULAC CEO and a consultant for the households, instructed Sargent. “They’re at the moment in detention. These males maintain the important thing to what truly occurred.”
NOTHING HAS CHANGED; THE ICE SURGE AND IMMIGRANT PURGE CONTINUES
Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was ousted earlier this 12 months as a part of a public relations stunt to persuade the American those that ICE, in addition to CBP, had turned the web page following the bloodshed all of us noticed on the streets. However as we and lots of others stated on the time, so long as Stephen Miller remained on the helm of the Trump administration’s mass deportation obsessions, the DHS marketing campaign of lawlessness and masked terror would proceed on.
“The division has sought to refashion itself as a extra skilled group that makes much less noise whereas nonetheless executing the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda,” The Bulwark continued. “Simply this Monday, in reality, Politico Playbook requested whether or not the mass deportation drive was softening or whether or not ICE had merely gotten higher at avoiding destructive consideration. They reported that Markwayne Mullin, the brand new homeland safety secretary, championed a ‘quieter and smarter’ strategy, and that the nation shouldn’t ‘anticipate one other Minneapolis anytime quickly.’”
However now one other one in all our neighbors is lifeless, one other household is grieving, and one other agent with a physique rely continues stalking our streets endangering all no matter the place they have been born.
HOW MANY MORE?
“This is identical playbook the Trump administration utilized in Minneapolis, and now it has value Lorenzo Salgado Araujo his life,” responded America’s Voice Government Director Vanessa Cárdnas. “A masked agent in an unmarked automobile killed Lorenzo in his personal neighborhood the place he lived for 35 years working and elevating a household. Like Minneapolis, native Houston regulation enforcement is being locked out of its personal investigation to get on the information. That is what unaccountable, unrepentant, unconstitutional enforcement seems like.”
ICE fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo throughout a Houston enforcement operation. His household says he was a hardworking father on his option to work. It is a lethal sample at DHS: no transparency, no oversight, no accountability. We demand an unbiased investigation.
— votolatino.bsky.social (@votolatino.bsky.social) 2026-07-08T14:31:02.711448497Z
“What number of extra households should bury a father, a mom, a son earlier than Trump and Miller’s mass deportation machine is held accountable?” Cárdenas continued. “Congress and DHS owe the Salgado household the reality about what occurred, and so they owe each household on this nation an finish to the killing in our streets.”
