In less than a week, two people have died during encounters with ICE – one inside Texas and another inside Maine. The incidents have put immigration laws back in the headlines and raised new questions about how ICE is carrying out President Donald Trump’s promise of a tough crackdown on immigrants, and what he has called the largest mass deportation effort in American history.
The new ICE investigation faces a transition period within the Department of Homeland Security. Under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, immigration enforcement was massive: high-profile raids. Border Patrol agents are deployed alongside ICE. A made-for-TV operation that produced sensational videos, went viral online, and frequently led cable broadcasts and local news. After months of criticism, Noem was replaced by Markwayne Mullin, who has continued to pursue the same immigration goals with a quiet public profile.
The killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston was one of the first major tests of DHS’s quieter and more professional approach. Following a second shooting in Maine, ICE announced Tuesday it was placing stop his practice of traffic stops. But the Houston massacre remains a revealing example,
Houston Public Media reporter Bianca Seward has been covering the story from the beginning. He said Today, It’s Explained co-anchor Sean Rameswaram that his report has continued to evolve over the past week as witnesses have come forward, conflicting accounts of the shooting have emerged, and local officials have demanded the opportunity to conduct their own investigation.
The following is part of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There is much more in the the perfect podcastso listen up Today, It’s Explained wherever you find podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
So, let’s go back to where this whole thing started, which I believe was about a week ago, Tuesday morning, July 7. What happened on Tuesday to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo?
Yes. Well, we’ve learned a lot over the past week about exactly what happened Tuesday morning and there are still a lot of unanswered questions, but I can take you back to Tuesday afternoon when we first heard about the shooting. We had a lot little information from ICE just sort of describe their very brief account of what happened. And according to the ICE spokesperson, they were trying to do a targeted operation, to arrest Salgado Araujo, and they say during the traffic stop, at that time, during the meeting, they claim that Salgado Araujo was hitting his car, trying to avoid arrest, trying to hit the ICE officer with his car when the officer fired his gun. He was shot in the stomach and then taken to Ben Taub Hospital, a hospital here in Houston, where he later died of his injuries. But it was not until the afternoon that we, the public and the press, began to hear about what had happened. And at that time we had very little to go far.
Did people initially take that account as, you know, indisputable truth or was there immediately a suspicion that there might be another side to the story?
It was almost immediately that immigrant rights organizations like LULAC and families resist math. Most of the time we didn’t have much to go out. We had very little information from ICE and almost no information from the family. The family itself was looking for more answers. It took them a while to understand what happened to their father, when he passed. So many excellent questions on Tuesday night and calls for accountability, transparency began immediately.
So how long until we get a different account of what happened on Tuesday morning?
The next morning we started hearing from the family. Salgado Araujo’s two sons, Ronaldo and Lorenzo Jr., he spoke to the public and started giving information about who their father was and they believed their father would obey, that he was just trying to go to work and they did not believe that their father would be making a mess, crashing his car or trying to avoid arrest. They said it didn’t sound like (their) father, but it would be a few more days before we got it any more reliable account about the people who were in the car with Salgado Araujo.
And when did that happen and what did they say?
On Thursday, we began to see reports online that the detainees, the men in Salgado Araujo’s car, who were also detained by ICE, began to come forward through their lawyers, talking about their experiences. On Friday, the attorney for the two men in custody, Hugo Balderas, said that the accounts given to him by his clients were completely at odds with ICE’s version of events. They were basically saying that at no time was there an ICE agent in front of the car, that (the ICE agent approached) the side of the car, that the shots (were) fired from the side of the car, basically disproved the idea that Salgado Araujo was driving his car with the officer or was trying to run from the officer. They claimed that the account happened from the side and that the officer opened fire as soon as he got out of his car.
How does the city respond to this different account?
Yes, there have been many calls for the Houston Police Department to conduct an independent investigation, for anyone at the official level in Houston to initiate an investigation. And it comes out for weeks in a confusing way, I think, to the public. (Harris County) District Attorney Sean Teare did say that he was starting his own investigation, that he was gathering evidence, that he was requesting surveillance video. We ourselves have seen people from the district attorney’s office go to different gas stations in the area and other businesses to ask for surveillance photos. But the problem that Teare describes is that they have not been invited by the federal authorities to cooperate or work with them. So Teare clearly may not know all the evidence that federal authorities gather during their own investigation. Currently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation, but their investigation is open to a possible attack on law enforcement. It does not say that it is in shooting in general find out exactly what happened.
And how does ICE respond to this account that contradicts their own?
We have repeatedly asked about claims that their account is completely inaccurate or incomplete or implies that Salgado Araujo engaged in behavior that he may not have. And we haven’t got any answers. We have no comment of any kind on the claims that the account is not reliable or if they want to add more to their previous statement.
So how do we know the truth?
It’s going to be a difficult process and part of what’s complicating it is that ICE and DHS have said that officers at the scene were not wearing body cameras and did not have dash cam video of the incident. So they say that ICE agents on the ground have no video to share with the public. We are start watching the clip on social networks from those surveillance videos, from gas stations or from witnesses who were also filming, spread online that show different parts of the shooting and different parts of the event, but we still don’t get a complete and clearer picture.
Can you tell us about this man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo? Who was he?
From what we have learned from his sons, he came to Houston in the early 90’s and has been here ever since working in construction, helping to build houses in the Houston area. They said, you know, he would go to work all day, come home and be with his family. You know, he is the father of three sons, all of whom have gone on to college and are now working as teachers or as engineers. They describe him as a shy person. A man who loved his family, a man who took care of his sons, a man who loved the Chivas soccer team from Mexico.
And he was undocumented? Did he have warrants for his arrest or anything like that?
As far as we can tell, we have done our searches within Harris County and in other databases where we have not found a criminal record so far. And they also say that there was no criminal record for him, that he had no problems with the law. He had no documents. But they, they, shared with us last week that he was working on getting a work permit, so he could be on his way. All of his sons were born here in the United States, and so were they citizens. And I think the family was starting to look at ways to justify their situation here.
And did ICE follow him Tuesday morning or was this like a case of mistaken identity or what?
Well, no. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Salgado Araujo was not the intended target of their investigation. They said they were targeting another man and Salgado Araujo was picking up men on his way to work. So (a) The DHS spokesperson said they were targeting another person who they believe got into the car with Salgado Araujo. It is not clear if they were right, if the person they were targeting was the one who got into the car. They have confirmed that Salgado Araujo was not the intended target, that his brother who was in the car was not the intended target. But they have not come forward and said that, yes, he is one of the other men who had a final removal order or had an administrative warrant for his arrest. They only say that they were targeting an individual and they believe he got into a car with Salgado Araujo, which led them to chase him.
Houston is obviously not Minneapolis, but there are some similarities between what happened here and I mean, it’s more clear I think, what happened to Renee Good in Minneapolis, if you think about the person behind the car and the ICE account, which says that, you know, the agent was in danger from the person behind the wheel of the car. How does Houston respond?
There have been protests and vigils this week. And they’re kind of latching onto that chaos too. The similarities in the narrative, not only with Renee Good being accused of crashing her car into an ICE agent’s agency and later the video showing that was not the case. But it has also happened here in Texas on South Padre Island. A year ago, another man was charged with lying to an ICE officer and the video didn’t quite wrap up to be so. So this is a narrative that Houstonians have heard before and the immigration office’s case agencies are immediately skeptical. They have no faith in the organization. They have no faith in narrative. And they want more transparency. They want accountability. They want to know what happened.
Do you see any signs that the death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo could lead to changes in the way ICE operates in Houston?
It will be hard to say. This is an organization that has been greatly encouraged by the Trump administration. So it will be hard to see if there will be an incentive to change habits. One thing we learned is that Representative Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) said she spoke with acting ICE Director David Venturella, specifically about the lack of body cameras for these agents. He promised her that all agents in the field would have body cameras by the end of the month, but a DHS spokesman. later he explained it will be within 60 days. So that could be a change that we see coming on the horizon. When we asked DHS about why agents weren’t wearing body cameras, they blamed, quote, “a shutdown of democratic government.” They said it takes time and money to outfit these agents. And, because of the government shutdown, they were held back from distributing the cameras.
