{"id":370905,"date":"2026-07-13T08:53:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T08:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/370905\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T08:53:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T08:53:38","slug":"detainees-tell-their-lawyer-an-ice-officer-shot-a-houston-driver-through-a-passenger-window-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/370905\/","title":{"rendered":"Detainees tell their lawyer an ICE officer shot a Houston driver through a passenger window"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2013 Three men inside a van who witnessed the fatal shooting<\/a> of the driver by an immigration officer in Houston said the Mexican man was shot through a passenger window and that the officer was never threatened, a lawyer who has spoken with them said Friday.<\/p>\n

The shooting Tuesday during an attempted traffic stop by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Houston has revived critical voices deriding the Trump administration\u2019s immigration crackdown and how ICE operates. Immigration arrests around the country recently surged to 10,000 over a five-day period<\/a>, fueled in part by massive Congressional funding<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has released no evidence to support the officer’s story that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo ignored their commands and rammed into an ICE vehicle with his white van, or that the officer fired in self-defense.<\/a><\/p>\n

Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia<\/a> has said the acting director of ICE told her officers thought someone in the van, but not Salgado Araujo, had a final order of removal but did not share a name.<\/p>\n

The officers were not wearing body cameras and neither ICE nor DHS have released photos, videos or other evidence from the scene.<\/p>\n

The men tell an attorney that the ICE story is untrue<\/p>\n

Salgado Araujo was a 52-year-old homebuilder who was shot and killed as he was driving his crew to a construction site. His family said he had lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, had no criminal record and was close to finishing the long process of obtaining legal status when he was killed.<\/p>\n

ICE detained the other three men in the van and they all told a lawyer that no officer was in front of the van or even in danger.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter speaking with these men, I have no doubt that what they\u2019re saying is the truth. I know that these agents \u2014 the agency \u2014 is going to try to cover it up,\u201d attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said during a news conference.<\/p>\n

Images of the van after the shooting appear to show no damage, he said. <\/p>\n

ICE has not released the names of the detained men, but family members said they have been able to briefly talk with them. Salgado Araujo’s brother was among those arrested.<\/p>\n

Garcia said at the same news conference it was unsurprising that Salgado Araujo drove off when ICE tried to stop his vehicle, given that their vehicles were unmarked and had no lights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would you do if you were being followed by someone and the cars were unmarked?\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n

Salgado Araujo was at least the eighth person to die during the Trump administration\u2019s immigration enforcement campaign. No immigration officers have been charged in the killings and video footage in several previous shootings<\/a> has contradicted the accounts of federal officers.<\/p>\n

The detained men say ICE is pressuring them to self-deport<\/p>\n

ICE is pressuring the men to self-deport, which would make it harder for them to share their version of events with investigators or others, said Juana Degollado, who said her stepfather Daniel Tirado Pantoja is among the detained men. She said he has no legal permission to live in the U.S. but has no criminal record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is extremely important that we preserve the integrity of this investigation,\u201d Balderas-Ibarra said. \u201cThat will all be out the window if they are deported.\u201d<\/p>\n

DHS said allegations that the men have been pressured to leave the country are \u201ccategorically false.\u201d<\/p>\n

DHS said Thursday that officers investigating a tip weeks earlier saw two white vans at the address of a target. While heading to that address Tuesday, officers saw a white van and someone inside who resembled the person they were looking for, the department said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one in that van had warrants or any legal problem,\u201d Degollado told The Associated Press in a text message.<\/p>\n

ICE refuses to release officer’s name or other information<\/p>\n

DHS said it will not release the officer\u2019s name because they could face threats and violence and their family could be at risk.<\/p>\n

DHS also has not responded to requests for other information, including how long the officer has worked for ICE or whether anyone involved in the shooting is on administrative leave.<\/p>\n

Unlike some previous deaths<\/a> involving federal immigration officers, few photos or videos surrounding the shooting have emerged publicly in the days since Salgado Araujo’s death.<\/p>\n

The League of United Latin American Citizens offered a $5,000 reward for video or other evidence, but the positions of the vehicles means surveillance cameras in the area were blocked from recording the shooting, CEO Juan Proa\u00f1o said.<\/p>\n

Local prosecutors are talking to witnesses<\/p>\n

Local prosecutors were not invited into the investigation by federal officials but have spent the past three days in the Houston neighborhood looking for surveillance footage and talking to witnesses, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said.<\/p>\n

Teare said anyone with video or other information must share it with his office so the truth about the shooting can be determined.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will go to the ends of the earth to collect all the evidence, so that we can eventually let the public know what happened,\u201d Teare said.<\/p>\n

The FBI is tightly controlling the evidence in the case, but Houston Mayor John Whitmire said he wants a local independent investigation and the police chief will meet with federal investigators next week to see what can be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize that it is a federal police agency that was out of control Tuesday morning,\u201d Whitmire said.<\/p>\n

Houston police do not work with ICE and the mayor said he found out about the shooting from the media.<\/p>\n

Salgado Araujo’s family said they found out he was dead through the ICE statement instead of directly from the agency. Garcia said officers kept his belongings and sent him to the hospital where he died without including his name.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Brook reported from New Orleans and Foley from Iowa City, Iowa. Associated Press reporters Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas; Rebecca Santana in Washington; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 Three men inside a van who witnessed the fatal shooting of the driver by an immigration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[145,23682,56,58,57,129399,129319,13161,13542,1499,3317],"class_list":["post-370905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-donald-trump","tag-ethnicity","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-juan-proano","tag-lorenzo-salgado-araujo","tag-race","tag-sylvia-garcia","tag-u-s-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370905","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=370905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}