{"id":366414,"date":"2026-07-09T05:14:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T05:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/366414\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T05:14:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T05:14:21","slug":"he-did-not-deserve-to-die-family-of-man-fatally-shot-by-ice-agent-speaks-out-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/366414\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018He did not deserve to die\u2019: family of man fatally shot by ICE agent speaks out | Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of a Mexican immigrant who was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent on Tuesday in Texas<\/a> called for an independent investigation into his killing, as questions swirl around federal officials\u2019 claims and lack of transparency.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did not deserve to die,\u201d said Ronaldo Salgado, the son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, during a press conference led by the League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac) on Wednesday in Houston, Texas.<\/p>\n

Salgado, 52, was shot and killed<\/a> by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official on Tuesday morning, while on his way to work at a construction site. Salgado\u2019s family said he was a \u201chardworking family man\u201d, had lived in the US for more than 30 years and was in the process of obtaining his work permit.<\/p>\n

Salgado\u2019s family, including his wife and three sons, found out about his death from news reports. Neither ICE nor local officials informed the family, they said, despite Ronaldo Salgado visiting the site of the shooting to search for answers on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

Civil rights groups and elected officials also called for independent investigation<\/a> into the shooting, questioning claims by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS has repeatedly come under fire for false and misleading statements and a lack of transparency with ICE-related deaths.<\/p>\n

According to a DHS statement<\/a>, ICE officials were conducting a \u201ctargeted enforcement operation\u201d in Houston. The department accused Salgado of having \u201cweaponized his vehicle\u201d to run over an ICE official, \u201cresulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense\u201d.<\/p>\n

The DHS announced that the department\u2019s inspector general\u2019s office and the FBI are investigating the events, but Salgado\u2019s family, lawmakers and officials are calling for local Houston officials to independently investigate.<\/p>\n

The Houston mayor\u2019s office on Wednesday stopped short of announcing an independent investigation, saying local city officials do not hold jurisdiction over federal law enforcement matters. Instead, Houston\u2019s mayor, John Whitmire, said<\/a> during a city council meeting that he was insisting on a \u201ctransparent, independent investigation\u201d by federal authorities.<\/p>\n

The DHS\u2019s statement on Tuesday evening echoes similar statements by the department. In January, the DHS justified the fatal shooting of Renee Good by claiming<\/a> she \u201cweaponized her vehicle\u201d against an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Video of the shooting later cast doubt on the DHS\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

Roman Palomares, the national president of Lulac, a civil rights organization that is helping the Salgado family, criticized ICE and the DHS for their claims during Wednesday\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not believe you, you have not earned that trust,\u201d Palomares said. \u201cICE has not earned that trust from the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three other co-workers were also in the van that he was driving when they were targeted by ICE, according to social media video and Ronaldo. The three others were arrested by ICE. One of those men was Ronaldo\u2019s uncle, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll three men were rounded up,\u201d Ronaldo Salgado said during the press conference. \u201cWe have not heard from them, but I hope they are able to provide their own statements to prove that my father feared for his life as unmarked cars followed my dad, who only wanted to get back to work and back to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salgado was a longtime construction worker in Texas, his family said during Wednesday morning\u2019s press conference. He was a man of routine, Salgado\u2019s son said, who left early in the morning every day to pick up construction co-workers and headed to work sites to help build homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,\u201d Salgado\u2019s son, Ronaldo, said. Tuesday\u2019s events related to Salgado\u2019s shooting have been \u201cvividly playing in my head over and over again\u201d, he added. Lulac and Salgado\u2019s family launched a GoFundMe to raise money for legal and funeral expenses.<\/p>\n

The congressional representative Sylvia Garcia has also called<\/a> for an independent investigation into the shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation,\u201d Garcia wrote on X. \u201cThe victim\u2019s family, my constituents, and the entire community deserve a complete and transparent accounting of what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal immigration officials have been involved in at least 23 shootings since January 2025. In addition to Good, federal agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti in January.<\/p>\n

In another case in Minneapolis, an ICE official chased a man, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, and fired his gun into the front door of his home. The official claimed he was beaten with a shovel and fired in self-defense. But video later contradicted the officer\u2019s claims. The ICE officer was charged<\/a> in May with assault and for falsely reporting a crime.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, local Minnesota law enforcement authorities investigating Pretti\u2019s shooting said the FBI refused to share evidence on its investigation<\/a>. The FBI also refused to share with state officials information related to the shootings of Good or Sosa-Celis.<\/p>\n

In March of 2025, an ICE official shot and killed a 23-year-old US citizen named Ruben Ray Martinez in Texas. Martinez\u2019s death was not made public for nearly a year. According to congressional Democrats, the DHS \u201cfalsely\u201d claimed that Martinez struck a federal agent with his vehicle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of a Mexican immigrant who was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent on Tuesday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-366414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}