Lawyers representing three witnesses to the Texas man’s murder say they dispute the U.S. government’s account of the shooting by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Friday’s remarks were in response to the July 7 shooting death of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop in Houston, Texas.
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Salgado Araujo’s killing is the latest in a series of deaths linked to the immigration crackdown under US President Donald Trump, who has led a mass deportation campaign since the start of his second term.
Lawyer Hugo Balderas Ibarra said all three men who were passengers in Salgado Araujo’s van rejected DHS statements that the father of three “rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle” and “used a deadly weapon against his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement vehicle.”
Instead, the three men claimed there was no ramming, and that ICE agents fired shots through the passenger-side window.
“After speaking with the three people who were in the car with Lorenzo, I have no doubt that what the ICE agents are saying is completely false,” Balderas-Ibarra said.
“At no time did they use a van to ram an ICE officer, and at no time did the life of an ICE officer be in jeopardy.”
Salgado Araujo and three other men were stopped by immigration officials on their way to the scene. All four were undocumented and residing in the United States, but were reportedly not ICE’s intended targets.
Balderas-Ibarra also shared Salgado Araugo’s last words.
“Hello, Matalon,” he said in Spanish, meaning “they already killed me.”
call for investigation
Salgado Araujo’s killing sparked fresh criticism of the tactics of federal immigration officials, who have been accused of excessive force, racial profiling and circumvention of civil rights protections.
His death also renewed criticism of Trump administration officials’ response to incidents of violence involving operatives.
Critics say government officials are portraying victims as aggressors in the high-profile cases.
For example, in January, immigration enforcement officers shot and killed two Americans, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Preti, in separate incidents in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem quickly described both victims as acts of “domestic terrorism.” However, evidence in both cases contradicted officials’ initial accounts, in part or in whole.
In Good’s case, the video appears to show an ICE agent standing in front of the stopped vehicle. She is seen turning the wheel, apparently trying to avoid the officer who stepped next to the SUV and opened fire.
In the case of Preeti, the footage showed an immigration officer pushing her to the ground as she tried to take pictures with her cell phone. The agent was then seen removing a gun from Preti’s holster, which he was legally allowed to carry, before another officer opened fire, killing him.
Investigations into both incidents yielded few answers.
In another incident, an ICE agent was arrested in May on suspicion of making a false report in the non-fatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosascelis, a Venezuelan man.
Family members and lawmakers are calling for an independent investigation into the killing of Salgado Araujo, a Mexican man who had lived in the United States for 35 years and had no criminal record.
His family, which includes three adult sons, said he was in the process of applying for legal status when he was killed.
“He didn’t deserve to die. He didn’t deserve to be in the headlines ‘Mexican man shot dead by ICE,'” his son Ronaldo Salgado said at a news conference this week.
“As Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, he was entitled to a quiet life as a husband, father, and job creator for dozens of men who wanted the American dream.”
On Thursday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government would ask U.S. prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into the death of a citizen during an immigration crackdown.
