A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a man in Houston after he attempted to evade arrest in his vehicle during an operation Tuesday, the agency said.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the man, a Mexican national, ignored commands to stop and attempted to ram an agent who fired his weapon in self-defense. The man was targeted in an operation because he was living in the country without legal permission,
according to the department, which oversees ICE. The man’s car struck an ICE vehicle, the department added.
The death drew immediate calls from some Democratic officials and immigrant rights groups for an independent investigation. Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who represents the neighborhood where the shooting took place, said the initial account released by federal authorities needs to be independently verified.
“All available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation,” she said in a post on X.
The DHS statement identified the man as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and said he died at a hospital.
The FBI’s Houston field office is investigating a potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer, said spokesperson Connor Hagan. In addition, representatives of the office’s evidence response team responded to the shooting at the request of DHS to process the scene, he said.
The shooting comes amid a newly intensified push by the Trump administration to carry out its mass deportations agenda. During the five-day period at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people. The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests continue and are surging.
Texas’ largest city has experienced heightened enforcement operations since the crackdown began last year, and not without public backlash. The Houston City Council voted to pass an ordinance limiting ICE cooperation but reversed course after Texas' Republican Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to cut more than $100 million in state funding for public safety.
Ronaldo Salgado, Salgado Araujo’s son, said in a post on Facebook that his father works in construction and was on his way to work, picking up his workers, when the shooting happened.
Salgado described his father as a hardworking Mexican man who has been in the U.S. for almost 35 years and was in the process of getting a work permit.
“My father did not deserve this,” he said.
A small group of protesters gathered Tuesday evening in the neighborhood where the shooting happened and chanted against ICE.
Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, called for a transparent investigation conducted by local authorities into the shooting. He said his organization is offering a $5,000 reward for information and videos from witnesses.
“We don’t take DHS at their word at all,” Proaño told The Associated Press. “There should be an independent investigation and they should release all the videos.”
Houston Mayor John Whitmire, a Democrat, declined to comment on the shooting.
This is at least the eighth death from an encounter with federal immigration officials since the start of the Trump administration’s intense immigration enforcement campaign in the U.S.
Initial descriptions by immigration officials have been contradicted later by video evidence. In February, federal authorities launched an investigation into two federal immigration agents who appeared to have made untruthful statements under oath regarding a nonfatal shooting of an immigrant in Minneapolis in January.
Last year, a federal immigration agent shot and killed a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, Ruben Ray Martinez, during a late-night traffic encounter. A grand jury declined to file criminal charges against the agent. DHS said the agent had fired at the vehicle after the driver “intentionally ran over” his fellow agent. Video footage of the encounter released by authorities does not clearly show the vehicle striking the agent.
In January, 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Good was shot in the head by a federal immigration agent during a crackdown in Minneapolis. DHS also said Good was trying to hit the agent with her vehicle, which local officials and witnesses disputed, saying she was only trying to drive away.
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
