Daniel Tirado Pantoja was one of the workers detained after the shooting that killed his boss Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, his attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said. U.S. officials have described the shooting as an act of self-defense after Araujo allegedly rammed an ICE vehicle following an attempted traffic stop and tried running over an officer.
Family members have rejected any notion that the shooting was warranted, and local leaders have pressed for an independent investigation.
“They were just men going to work to provide for their families,” Pantoja’s stepdaughter Juana Degollado said. “That’s all they were doing. They were not committing any crimes.”
Monserrat Cardoso, the stepdaughter of Pantoja, told the Houston Chronicle Tuesday that she believes ICE agents racially profiled the men when they attempted to pull them over.
“They just saw a couple of Hispanic men going to work, so they decided to chase them down and follow them,” she said. “They were targeted because they’re Hispanic men.”
Degollado, a 27-year-old Houstonian, said Pantoja has lived in Texas for 30 years, had a clean record and was in the process of getting his green card. He’s been married to her mother for 12 years and has a teenage son who’s a U.S. citizen, she said.
He’s now in custody at ICE’s Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, Balderas-Ibarra said. He he hopes to visit Pantoja on Wednesday and believes his arrest constituted racial profiling.
Balderas-Ibarra, who specializes in immigration cases, could not immediately share details about Pantoja’s status but said he’s working to get him released.
“If you’re brown, you look like you might be undocumented, that’s sufficient probable cause to stop them,” Balderas-Ibarra said as he criticized ICE’s arrest.
Degollado said she sprung out of bed when her stepfather called home from the ICE detention facility at about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. She could hear the heartbreak in his voice as he and his wife spoke through tears over the phone line.
“He just sounds really sad,” Degollado said. “He spoke to my mom. They were both crying, and my mom was telling him it’s going to be OK, that we’re going to do whatever we can to help him out.”
Degollado said her stepfather is a great person with a “big heart for everyone.” His birthday is this month, and he will likely spend it in federal custody, she said.
This story may be updated.