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<\/p>\nHOUSTON \u2014 A week after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed by a federal immigration agent, residents ranging from teachers to business owners filled City Hall on Tuesday to press Houston Mayor John Whitmire and the City Council to demand answers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
Competing with chants from protesters gathered outside, Houston resident Olivia Smith told city leaders to demand the names of ICE agents involved in the shooting, one of two fatal shootings involving ICE in the past week. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey acted illegally and murdered an innocent man simply for being brown. Where is the law and order in that?\u201d she said. \u201cIt has never been about law and order. It has always been about preserving the deeply ingrained culture of white supremacy, working hand in hand with pursuit of profits.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 100 signed up to address the City Council during Tuesday\u2019s meeting, the first since the 52-year-old father was shot and killed after being stopped by ICE agents using unmarked vehicles. Some speakers shouted demands and slammed the podium while others in the standing room-only audience cried. During tense moments, the crowd yelled, \u201cShame! Shame!\u201d<\/p>\n
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FIEL co-founder Cesar Espinosa waits to speak during a Houston City Council meeting Tuesday, July 14, 2026, in Houston. People have demanded action from city leaders after the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an immigration agent on July 7. Jon Shapley for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n
Dustin Rhodes, a 17-year-old Fort Bend ISD student who said he\u2019s disappointed in his local leaders. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are told that ICE is here because our streets are flooded with dangerous criminals,\u201d he said. \u201cYet a beloved father is dead. We have eyes, we have ears, and we are paying attention. \u2026 There is no point in pretending that ICE is here to protect us, and any attempt to continue that lie will only show that our safety is not your concern.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keatan King, an associate pastor at Saint Philip Presbyterian Church in West Houston, pleaded for action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI implore you to do everything in your power to ensure the independent investigation of the death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and to establish higher standards of accountability for ICE agents: body cameras on, masks off, identification presented, guns holstered,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
City Council Member Alejandra Salinas spoke after King, saying she attends her church: \u201cWe are going to be out there protesting with you, and we are going to do everything to make sure HPD does everything in its power to make sure no stone is unturned, and we get justice for Lorenzo.\u201d <\/p>\n
Whitmire committed to conducting a local investigation<\/a> into the shooting on Friday, days after he said the city had no jurisdiction to investigate the involvement of federal agents. <\/p>\n Whitmire also on Tuesday directed Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz to send a letter<\/a> to Texas Department of Public Safety Director Freeman Martin and ask for the Texas Rangers to conduct their own investigation. This came a day after Martin said that DPS has \u201creceived no request from any local law enforcement agency\u201d for assistance in the shooting investigation, according to a letter<\/a> he sent in response to a July 8 demand<\/a> from several Democratic lawmakers for the state agency to open its own probe.\u00a0<\/p>\n DPS didn\u2019t immediately respond to The Texas Tribune\u2019s question about the Houston leaders\u2019 request.\u00a0<\/p>\n Diaz also met with the FBI on Tuesday regarding the case, according to his letter and a social media post<\/a> by the federal agency. Other attendees, the FBI\u2019s post said, included federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas, the Texas Rangers and Harris County District Attorney\u2019s Office, which is also running its own investigation into the shooting.<\/p>\n At Tuesday\u2019s City Council meeting, Whitmire addressed media reports that ICE will suspend most vehicle stops<\/a> in the wake of deadly shootings of immigrants in Houston and Maine, calling the directive too late.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a shame that it has to come after a loss of life,\u201d Whitmire said. \u201cBut the community is making a difference, and we will continue.\u201d<\/p>\n City Council Member Edward Pollard said he wants more clarity on the city\u2019s next steps.<\/p>\n \u201cAn independent investigation, that\u2019s very vague \u2014 I think it needs to be extremely direct,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it needs to be coming from the city. We have one of the largest police departments in the nation with resources and abundance, and I know that they\u2019re fully capable and qualified to do a task to bring forth clarity, answers, insight.\u201d<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s emotional meeting came a few months after the City Council debated how extensively police should cooperate<\/a> with federal immigration agents, including ICE. <\/p>\n The council in April approved an ordinance<\/a> limiting police interaction with ICE agents, prompting an investigation by Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>, who accused the city of breaking a state law banning \u201csanctuary city\u201d policies<\/a>. Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> also stepped in by threatening to withdraw $110 million in public safety grants and blocking Houston from future funding if the ordinance remained in force.<\/p>\n About a week later, the ordinance that passed on a 12-5 vote was heavily amended with the support of 13 council members. Much of the ordinance\u2019s initial language was stripped, including a section that said administrative warrants issued by ICE \u2014 versus warrants signed by a judge \u2014 were not enough for police officers to arrest or detain an individual.<\/p>\n Another hurdle facing the Houston City Council is House Bill 2127, dubbed the \u201cDeath Star\u201d bill<\/a> by opponents that prevents cities and counties from creating local ordinances that overstep state laws as a way to dilute progressive policies.<\/p>\n Cities including Houston sued the state to block the 2013 law. A Travis County judge ruled in August 2023<\/a> that the law was unconstitutional, but the 3rd Court of Appeals overturned that decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n City Council Member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz told the audience they have another tool to hold leaders accountable: voting. <\/p>\n \u201cEverybody here is appalled, but it\u2019s not much we can do if we don\u2019t have you doing more than coming and talking and protesting,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need you at the polls.\u201d<\/p>\n Tears stream down Jeana Magallon\u2019s cheeks as she speaks during a Houston City Council meeting on Tuesday. Jon Shapley for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n Jeana Magallon, a Houston Independent School District teacher, told the City Council about breaking up a fight between two students and telling them about the \u201cimportance of talking out our issues\u201d and \u201cgetting a trusted adult involved in their problems.\u201d<\/p>\n The response stunned her: \u201cMy fifth-grade student looked me in the eyes and said, \u2018That\u2019s not real life, miss. ICE wouldn\u2019t do that to me. Police don\u2019t do that. They fight, they hurt us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat could I say to him?\u201d Magallon said through tears. \u201cWe are teaching our children to expect violence towards them. So please, for my students, for our children, justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo \u2014 this is on all of you.\u201d<\/p>\n Kendrick Sampson, a Houston resident and actor, asked the City Council, \u201cWhy aren\u2019t y\u2019all protecting us? Where do y\u2019all draw the line?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt should only take one, it should be not one more, not one more murder,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re not going to protect us, we should not protect y\u2019all. We shouldn\u2019t protect y\u2019all seats.\u201d<\/p>\n Maria Cervantes, a 57-year-old Houston resident, said: \u201cICE hunts us worse than animals because when we call animal control, do they just shoot the animal? No, they pick them up right alive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t even consider ICE law enforcement,\u201d she continued. \u201cThey\u2019re just like hunting dogs that are killing us left and right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 A week after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed by a federal immigration agent, residents ranging from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[392,56,58,57,1724,3743,1967,287,293],"class_list":["post-373696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-greg-abbott","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-immigration","tag-john-whitmire","tag-ken-paxton","tag-politics","tag-texas-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373696","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=373696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tears](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260714-ICE-Houston-City-Council-JS-03.jpg\")
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