U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia will host a congressional forum in Houston on Friday to scrutinize federal use-of-force policies and tactics in the aftermath of the fatal ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in East Houston earlier this month.
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-MS, the ranking member of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, and U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-NY, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, will join Garcia and other Democratic lawmakers as they continue to seek answers into Salgado’s death.
The Mexican immigrant and small-business owner’s death on July 7 has rattled the Hispanic community and reignited a national debate over the use of deadly force by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare and League of United Latin American Citizens CEO Juan Proaño will offer testimony during the forum, called Seeking Justice: Oversight of ICE’s Use of Force in the Death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. Teare’s office is conducting an independent investigation into the shooting.
Two of Salgado’s sons, Ronaldo Salgado and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo Jr., will provide opening statements. Patricia Cabrera, the director of East End Communities, and Father Salvatore DeGeorge from Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church will join the panel.
Garcia has led Democrats’ efforts to compel federal officials to provide more details about why Salgado was shot after witnesses challenged ICE’s official account of what led up to the shooting.
Daniel Tirado Pantoja, Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego and Victor Salgado, Lorenzo Salgado’s younger brother, were passengers in Salgado’s work van and disputed DHS’s narrative. In court filings, Tirado and Rojas said there was no effort to run down agents.
“At no moment were the agents in front of the vehicle,” Tirado wrote in a statement included in his filing. “Lorenzo put the vehicle in park as the agents were shooting.”
Garcia interviewed Victor Salgado at an immigration detention center in Conroe on July 11. He told the same story: Agents were not in the path of the van, and they instead approached from the side of the vehicle.
All three men have been detained at the Montgomery ICE Processing Center since the shooting. Their attorneys have filed petitions to have the men released.
Garcia also confirmed days after the shooting that neither Salgado nor any of the other men were the original targets of the ICE investigation.
“The acting director of ICE has confirmed that Salgado was not the target, and neither was his brother,” Garcia told the Chronicle on July 9. “But he provided no information as to why, if he was not a target, he ended up being the fatality. And that’s the question that the family needs answered.”