Lorenzo Salgado Araujo's passengers dispute ICE's account

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The three passengers were detained by ICE after Tuesday’s shooting in Houston, which the federal agency has characterized as an act of self-defense by an officer.

Bianca Seward | Posted onJuly 10, 2026, 2:02 PM (Last Updated: July 10, 2026, 3:16 PM)

At least two of the passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at the time he was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Houston this week are disputing the federal agency's account of the incident, according to an attorney representing the men.

Hugo Balderas, the lawyer for two of the three passengers, said Friday he had spoken with his clients, who say ICE's account is inconsistent with their experience.

"They confirmed that at no point was there ever an ICE agent directly in front of the vehicle," Balderas said. "They also confirmed that the shots came from the sides, not from the front, which is inconsistent with the ICE statement" ...

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/immigration/2026/07/10/556770/ice-shooting-houston-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-passengers-dispute-dhs-account/

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1. Harris County ME: Houston ICE shooting death a homicide

... On Thursday, DHS officials said the officers involved had not yet received their body-worn cameras and blamed government shutdowns they say delayed funding for that equipment ...

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/07/09/harris-county-medical-examiner-rules-death-of-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-a-homicide/

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2. Refugees International Calls for Investigations into Killings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal

“Refugees International condemns the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father, husband, and beloved neighbor who spent more than 30 years building a life in the United States after coming here from Mexico. Lorenzo was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Houston on July 7, 2026. According to his family, Mr. Salgado Araujo was looking for work in construction, as was his routine, when ICE agents confronted him during what they claimed to be a “targeted enforcement operation.” An officer shot Mr. Salgado in the abdomen and he died of his injuries.

This fatal shooting comes amid a documented rise in deaths connected to immigration enforcement and detention this year. Last March, Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, an Afghan man and father of six who worked with the U.S. military for more than a decade, died within 24 hours of being in ICE custody. The Dallas County Medical Examiner’s office certified the cause of death on June 25, 2026, three months later, listing the primary cause as anaphylaxis. The Paktiawal family has yet to receive an autopsy report explaining his death certificate ...

https://www.refugeesinternational.org/statements-and-news/refugees-international-calls-for-full-and-independent-investigations-into-killings-of-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-and-mohammad-nazeer-paktiawal/

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3. Governor Tim Walz

... Minnesota stands with Houston in demanding accountability for the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. This bloodshed cannot be normalized.

Link to tweet

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4. Video shows the moment before Tuesday's deadly ICE shooting

https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/houston-ice-shooting-deadly-new-video/285-404074fa-0aca-4dae-bcb7-ffe474ac1864

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5. ICE account deserves skepticism

... To start, ICE said the shooting was justified because Salgado “weaponized his vehicle,” jargon for saying he tried to run over the officers who stopped his white van. But as The New York Times was quick to point out, this is a common claim made by ICE to justify its violence, but one that has repeatedly fallen apart under scrutiny. Already the three men who were passengers in the van driven by Salgado are disputing ICE’s account, saying that Salgado never swerved and that ICE officers fired almost immediately upon stopping the van.

In this case, refuting the officers’ claim may be tricky — but only because the officers were not wearing body cameras. An ICE spokesperson blamed the lack of cameras on “back to back Democrat [sic] shutdowns,” but, of course, the Republicans controlled Congress during those shutdowns, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act gave ICE so much money (roughly $75 billion) that it was essentially unaffected by the shutdown in the first place. And perhaps most important, it was the Trump administration itself that was working hard to thwart the rollout of bodycams.

On top of this, the lawyers of the men ICE arrested in Salgado’s van — the ones claiming vehicular “weaponization” never happened — are alleging that ICE is putting pressure on them to self-deport. This would, of course, make their testimony harder to obtain. And perhaps even more troublingly, ICE officers stripped Salgado of all his identification before putting him in the ambulance after shooting him, which delayed identification after he died at the hospital ...

https://www.ms.now/opinion/ice-shooting-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-houston-red-flags