He Lived Here for 35 Years. Put Three Kids in College. ICE Killed Him.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was picking up a crew for a construction project when ICE shot him. It now claims he was the aggressor.
LORENZO SALGADO ARAUJO CAME TO THE UNITED STATES thirty-five years ago—a few years too late to benefit from the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, popularly known as the “Reagan amnesty.” He worked in construction. By the 2000s, he was a small business owner who provided jobs and work for other men. They would drive to the North Houston suburbs and build houses. His dream was to build his own home for his family one day—a dream he achieved.
On Tuesday morning, Lorenzo was picking up workers as usual shortly after 6 a.m. when he was confronted by ICE and killed. He was 52 years old.
The shooting in Houston’s historically Mexican-American East End community near Magnolia Park took place just five minutes from the site of Houston’s FIFA Fan Festival.
Lorenzo’s son Ronaldo Salgado, a teacher, wrote on Facebook Tuesday night that his father had been in the process of obtaining his work permit through the legal process.
Speaking at a press conference Wednesday morning, Ronaldo thanked his former students for being in attendance and Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) for spending time in the hospital with him overnight.
He said Lorenzo had been a hardworking man of routine, one who never cared for his name to be known outside his family, only for his children—three sons, all born in the United States—to be educated and to become good people.
“I love our dad, he worked hard,” Ronaldo told me in an interview after the press conference. “He always told us that we needed to do well in school so we don’t end up like him in the sun.”
On Tuesday, Lorenzo’s day began at 5 a.m., the same way it did every day: “with a hearty meal prepared by my mom,” Ronaldo said.
But after taking his coffee and loading his work boots in the car to pick up his crew for work on houses in North Houston, Lorenzo was beset by ICE agents in unmarked cars. Some sort of confrontation ensued. He was shot. He died of his injuries at a hospital.
As Ronaldo wrote this morning, “Today is the first day without him for all of us, and it is heartbreaking to know that my mom did not make lunch for my dad before going to work—the first time in their 30+ year marriage.”
In the emotional press conference, Ronaldo described his desperate scramble to find out information about what happened to his father. When he first heard about an interaction with ICE, the reports were conflicting. He hoped his father had simply been detained, so his first plan had been to find his father’s white work van and deliver it to his crew so that they might be able to finish work and get paid.
As time went on, Ronaldo remained in the dark. He did not learn about his father’s final moments from a hospital or law enforcement. Instead, confirmation of his death came in the cruel form of videos on social media.
“I recognized him immediately: not from his appearance, but from his voice crying in the street as he was bleeding out,” Ronaldo said through tears.
STANDING THERE HONORING HIS FATHER at the press conference this morning, Ronaldo demonstrated why he and his brothers were their dad’s pride and joy. They had become educated: Ronaldo, 29, graduated from the University of Houston; Lorenzo Jr., 27, from Tufts University; and their youngest brother is in college now.
Ronaldo said he wants his father to be remembered as a fan of the Mexican national team and of C.D. Guadalajara (Chivas), and as a man who sat on his porch every evening after work petting his dog and looking out in satisfaction at the life he’d built in this country.
In our interview, Ronaldo and Lorenzo Jr. told me about what their dad cherished. They took turns ticking off what he loved to eat. “Chile relleno, pozole, chilaquiles,” they said. “Anything my mom made with love,” Ronaldo added. He supported their mom’s garden, buying her flowers to plant, and he loved a good deal at the flea market. Last week it was a “big pot” for tamales, which reminded the young men of their childhood where, while they didn’t have a lot, they never wanted for anything.
One thing Lorenzo especially loved was his John Deere riding lawnmower. It was more than just a machine to him. The yard in the Araujos’ old home was too small for a riding mower. But with the bigger yard in their new home he “was able to justify the purchase,” Ronaldo said. It was a symbol of pride and progress.
Three men were also in the van with Lorenzo at the time of the shooting, including Lorenzo’s brother. They have been detained, and their current whereabouts are unknown. Both the Araujo family and local activists fear the men will be quickly deported to prevent them from providing testimony about ICE’s actions.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment on the location of the three witnesses.
“I hope they can provide statements that my father feared for his life,” Ronaldo said.
“Me estan matando”
ICE HAS PORTRAYED LORENZO in its statements to the media as an “illegal alien” who acted violently in the confrontation.
“From information we are receiving, he rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer, resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense,” an ICE spokesperson said.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve all heard it before. As Lorenzo’s family, activists, and Democratic officeholders have all pointed out, ICE’s response after this shooting has been the same as its response to each ICE-related killing during Trump 2.0: to claim its personnel acted responsibly, and not to wait for an investigation before casting blame on the dead. The New York Times found that Trump administration claims about shootings frequently unravel under legal scrutiny.
One witness told the Washington Post that he heard a man—Lorenzo—gurgling and shouting “Me estan matando”—they’re killing me, a haunting echo of “I can’t breathe,” the final words of Eric Garner and George Floyd, two others killed by law enforcement.
Roman Palomares, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), one of the oldest Hispanic civil rights organizations in the country, accused ICE of a coverup.
“In the absence of facts from ICE we are left to conclude a man was unlawfully killed on the streets of Houston,” he said. “It’s unacceptable and un-American to use lethal force against a human being and lock away the evidence and expect his family, the people of Houston, the American people to say ‘We believe you.’ We don’t believe you. ICE has not earned that trust from the American people.”
“This is a tragedy,” Rep. Garcia said at the press conference. “A family led by a man here thirty-five years with absolutely no criminal history. Remember Renée Good? Has ICE learned nothing from that experience?”
“Someone losing their life is a big goddamn deal,” Rep. Christian Menefee (D-Texas) said at the press conference. Menefee emphasized that Houstonians are deeply familiar with immigrants, regardless of status. “We are a city of undocumented immigrants, they are our neighbors.”
LULAC has taken a leading role in helping the family, with CEO Juan Proaño calling for a full and independent investigation and announcing a $5,000 reward for witnesses to come forward with video of the shooting or any information that leads to an indictment or exoneration in the case. They have also organized a GoFundMe for Lorenzo’s family.
The shooting is the first big test for a Department of Homeland Security that has tried in recent months to avoid the kind of imagery we saw earlier this year of Renée Good and Alex Pretti being killed in the streets of Minneapolis and Border Patrol officer Greg Bovino ghoulishly swooping after publicity. The department has sought to refashion itself as a more professional organization that makes less noise while still executing the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. Just this Monday, in fact, Politico Playbook asked whether the mass deportation drive was softening or whether ICE had simply gotten better at avoiding negative attention. They reported that Markwayne Mullin, the new homeland security secretary, championed a “quieter and smarter” approach, and that the nation shouldn’t “expect another Minneapolis anytime soon.”
Reduced media attention, though, does not mean a less extreme approach to deportations. On Monday, White House Border Czar Tom Homan admitted what activists, lawmakers, and analysts have been observing for a while: that half of those targeted by ICE do not have criminal records.
Surreptitious extremism is still extremism, and ICE remains an undertrained, overly aggressive organization. Which is why, in this shooting just hours after Homan’s remarks, we see all too clearly what happens when armed agents swarm blue-collar working parents fearing for their lives.
“Secretary Markwayne Mullin is no different than former Secretary Kristi Noem,” Proaño said. “The same goes for the new ICE director. We do not believe them. They are using a playbook they’ve used in shootings across the country.”
This is heartbreaking. This is criminal.
Rest in peace Lorenzo. I hope that his family eventually gets some justice. Thank you for writing and reporting on this Adrian, I'm so angry and upset over what Ice is doing and the mainstream news orgs seem not to care.