{"id":373880,"date":"2026-07-15T11:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/373880\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T11:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:08:10","slug":"fear-invades-houston-latino-neighborhoods-after-ice-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/373880\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear invades Houston Latino neighborhoods after ICE shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: This story contains profanity.<\/p>\n

HOUSTON \u2014 Not long after 7 a.m. on July 7, Buddy the dog howled.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a different bark for everything,\u201d said Clara, who was born almost 55 years ago in Tamaulipas, Mexico, jumped the border into Texas 26 years ago, and has been living in this corner of Magnolia Park, a neighborhood in east Houston, ever since. \u201cBut whenever he howls, it\u2019s because he hears the ambulance.\u201d <\/p>\n

Clara and her family had grown used to sirens echoing through their neighborhood, so they didn\u2019t think much of it. She kept working around the house \u2014 cleaning, cooking, getting the day going. <\/p>\n

As the morning went on, the noise outside increased. Clara, who asked to be identified only by her first name because she is undocumented, began to hear movement on the streets, helicopters flying over them. <\/p>\n

The bad news didn\u2019t take long to arrive. A friend called her husband, Juan, and told him a Mexican worker had just been killed. The ambulance Buddy howled at was heading toward 6812 Canal St., barely two minutes from her home, to aid Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 55-year-old man who had just been shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent as ICE tried to stop the van he was driving after he picked up fellow construction workers to start their shift.<\/p>\n

Salgado Araujo, a father of three who had lived and worked in Houston for 35 years, died in a nearby hospital. It was the first of two fatal ICE shootings within a week \u2014 an agent killed a 26-year-old immigrant from Colombia in Maine on Monday, also during a traffic stop. <\/p>\n

\"\"Investigators with the Harris County District Attorney\u2019s Office work near a memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on July 8, 2026, in Houston. Salgado Araujo was fatally shot by an immigration officer. Jon Shapley for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

\"\"People gather to protest the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent on July 8 in Houston. Jon Shapley for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, President Trump ordered ICE officers to halt most vehicle stops, The New York Times reported. That order came just hours after a tractor-trailer struck and killed a 28-year-old man who tried to run from ICE agents at a gas station in St. Augustine, Fla.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis changes nothing. The raids will continue,\u201d said 44-year-old community organizer Jessica Campos. \u201cFamilies will still be terrorized in their homes, and people will still be targeted at their places of employment, putting even more people at risk of harm or even death. We are not safe anywhere. <\/p>\n

\u201cVehicle stops were never the real problem,\u201d she added. \u201cThe problem is the people behind the guns who keep killing our people, ICE.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s mass deportation program has sent ICE agents into neighborhoods across Texas and the nation, hunting for undocumented immigrants. Agents first arrived in Magnolia Park months ago and started to arrest people. Neighbors went into hiding and warned each other about ICE sightings, suspicious unmarked vans parked near major intersections, friends being taken away. <\/p>\n

Then, things seemed to calm down. People ventured back into the streets. Undocumented neighbors thought the worst had been left behind. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut about a week ago, we started hearing again that they were back in the neighborhood,\u201d Clara said.<\/p>\n

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security haven\u2019t released much information about Salgado Araujo\u2019s shooting beyond an initial statement saying he rammed an ICE vehicle and was attempting to hit an agent with his vehicle when he was shot. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The New York Times later that Salgado Araujo wasn\u2019t the target<\/a> \u2014 the agents were looking for two Guatemalan men.<\/p>\n

On Friday, an attorney representing two of the men who accompanied Salgado Araujo in his van that morning said that they never tried to run over any ICE agents. <\/p>\n

The Harris County District Attorney\u2019s office has launched an investigation into Salgado Araujo\u2019s shooting, after citizens and elected officials demanded an independent investigation.<\/p>\n

After the shooting, Clara went looking in the Facebook groups that neighbors have been using for more than a year to alert each other about ICE raids on their streets. She saw smartphone videos of Salgado Araujo lying on the pavement, federal agents immobilizing him while he bled to death. <\/p>\n

Like Clara and her husband Juan, Salgado Araujo jumped the border nearly four decades ago and built a life in Magnolia Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt never crossed our minds that ICE would kill someone here in the neighborhood,\u201d Clara said. \u201cWe knew they were taking people away, but not to the point of killing them. They\u2019re becoming very violent. They don\u2019t even care whether you\u2019re a woman or that there are children with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day Salgado Araujo died, Juan had an evening job lined up not far from Canal Street, the first one after some time. Many of Juan\u2019s colleagues decided to stay home that day, but Juan couldn\u2019t afford it. The family needed the money. <\/p>\n

The family decided Juan would go to work, but their youngest son Jose \u2014 a U.S. citizen who\u2019s going to medical school on a scholarship \u2014 would tag along. That way, they thought, if ICE stopped them, there would be at least one person with an American passport in the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found myself wondering whether my dad was going to make it back home,\u201d Jose said. \u201cSince I have papers, if something happens to him, I can contact my mom or my sisters.\u201d <\/p>\n

Father and son headed out around the same time a crowd started to gather for a vigil on Canal Street.<\/p>\n

Clara said they talk about returning to Mexico. Juan is getting tired of construction work. They stay, she said, for their children.<\/p>\n

She said that she tries not to let fear rule their lives, but she\u2019s been only going out to buy groceries and to church. Alerts about ICE sightings in the neighborhood keep coming to her phone. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my husband leaves for work, I put him in God\u2019s hands, but I\u2019m always worried about whether he\u2019s going to come back,\u201d she said. \u201cICE is everywhere.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"Jose and his mother visit the site where Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was fatally shot by an ICE agent. Jose, a U.S. citizen, went to work with his undocumented father the day of the shooting in case ICE tried to detain his father. Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve silenced me\u201d<\/p>\n

In Magnolia Park, a predominantly Latino neighborhood in East Houston, many found ICE\u2019s account of Salgado Araujo\u2019s shooting too similar to the one the agency wielded after their agents fatally shot Ren\u00e9e Good, a 37-year-old mother and poet, during a January protest in Minneapolis against immigration enforcement operations in that city. <\/p>\n

It also echoes ICE\u2019s statements after an agent fatally shot 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez<\/a> in South Padre Island last year while helping to direct traffic around an accident. ICE said Martinez tried to run over an officer, who opened fire in self-defense. When the body camera and security footage was released, the videos didn\u2019t definitively corroborate the officers\u2019 account. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obvious they used the same excuse as with Good \u2014 that Lorenzo had run him over. But, I mean, people are going to say that it\u2019s obvious it\u2019s the same story all over again,\u201d said 38-year-old accountant Dulce Rivera, a Magnolia Park resident. <\/p>\n

By Friday, rage and grief were boiling in East Houston. Residents with American citizenship or their papers in order gathered on Canal Street and improvised an altar to honor Salgado Araujo. They organized vigils, lit candles, mourned together and urged ICE to free the witnesses of Salgado Araujo\u2019s shooting, among them his brother. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, undocumented neighbors went back to hiding, shut their blinds, and watched the protests unfold from their TVs and smartphones. <\/p>\n

Silvina was driving around the city the day Salgado Araujo was shot, delivering food for DoorDash, a job she sometimes did to make ends meet. Whenever she needs to work for the delivery platform, she uses the account of her partner, who is a U.S. citizen. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt scares me, but, well\u2026 we\u2019ve got to eat,\u201d said Silvina, who asked to be identified only by her first name because she\u2019s undocumented. <\/p>\n

That day, she noticed an unusual number of police officers out on the streets and immediately drove back home, where she saw a video of the shooting on social media. <\/p>\n

\u201cI completely freaked out. I haven\u2019t gone back to doing DoorDash since that day,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Silvina said she worked as a photographer in her native Uruguay before her studio went out of business during the COVID pandemic and she decided to come to the U.S. <\/p>\n

\"SilvinaSilvina and her son at their home in Houston. The photographer left her native Uruguay to live in Texas and said she was afraid to leave her home after the fatal ICE shooting.
Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

\"SilvinaSilvina opens the blinds at her home in Houston. Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

Silvina said she arrived on a tourist visa four years ago, along with her 10-year-old son and her then-partner, who had a green card. She waited tables, cleaned churches, and did some freelance photography to get by, and left that partner when he became abusive, she said. <\/p>\n

She later met her current partner and they moved in together. \u201cThe idea is to get married and get my papers through him,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

When ICE started raiding Houston, not long after Donald Trump was sworn in as president again, Silvina said she left a restaurant job out of fear. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was afraid to leave my house by myself. I always went out with my partner, and I still do to this day. Whenever I see a police officer, even though I\u2019m not doing anything wrong, I just freeze up,\u201d Silvina said. \u201cAfter a while, I pulled myself together and said, \u2018I can\u2019t live like this.\u2019 But I\u2019m still careful. I either go out with my partner or with my friends, with a group of people.\u201d <\/p>\n

During the first protest against ICE in Houston, she stayed home. \u201cIt was the first time in my life I didn\u2019t go to a protest I wanted to be at,\u201d she said. She watched the rally from her window, waved her Uruguayan flag and cried. <\/p>\n

\u201cI became deeply depressed because I\u2019d always been an activist, and then all of a sudden I found myself too scared to go to a fucking protest,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019ve silenced me.\u201d <\/p>\n

Silvina wants to go back to Uruguay, but stays here because she thinks her son, who is 14 and is doing well at school, has more opportunities in Houston. <\/p>\n

She says at this point, deportation is the least bad thing that could happen to her. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow they can put you in a concentration camp. They can separate you from your child,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat if they send me to another country? What if they detain me for months and, I don\u2019t know, kill me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople visit a memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. Jon Shapley for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

A wake on Canal Street <\/p>\n

On Friday night at 6812 Canal St., the atmosphere was that of a wake. <\/p>\n

The altar to honor Salgado Araujo had grown in the days since the shooting. A crowd of twenty-something people surrounded it in silence, sobbing, fists clenched. A big Mexican flag waved above a smaller American one. Nearly everyone who arrived lit a candle and put it among the flowers, balloons, images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, signs calling to end ICE\u2019s violence and demanding an independent investigation. <\/p>\n

Another sign, in Spanish, read, \u201cWe come here to work, not to get killed.\u201d <\/p>\n

Campos, the community organizer, came with her daughter to pay their respects. They brought a bouquet of flowers. <\/p>\n

Campos was born in Brownsville, the daughter of an U.S. citizen and a Mexican citizen, raised with the help of a stepfather from El Salvador. Now she mostly works with kids \u2014 many of them the children of undocumented parents. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was just having a conversation with a teacher who told me, \u2018So-and-so stopped showing up, and I didn\u2019t know why. Then they told me that the whole family was deported,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery time I see a child cry because their family has been separated, I think about what that child will become, what they will do with that hate, the darkness they will carry inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campos said most families she knows in the neighborhood have been living in hiding for more than a year now \u2014 not only the undocumented ones, but all of the Latino population.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jessica Campos speaks during a Houston City Council meeting on July 14, 2026, in Houston. People have demanded action from city leaders after the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an immigration agent. Jon Shapley for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

\"\"Jessica Campos after speaking during a Houston City Council meeting on July 14. Jon Shapley for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s no longer just the fear of being deported; it\u2019s the fear of being killed,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is no way to live, waking up every day to another fight, another person killed, another person deported, another family separated, every single day.\u201d <\/p>\n

One day, when the raids were just beginning, Dulce Rivera took her son to the dentist. A woman and her daughter sat next to her in the waiting room. <\/p>\n

Rivera noticed the woman\u2019s leg was shaking. <\/p>\n

The woman made a phone call. Rivera heard her saying that ICE was out in the parking lot. \u201cWhat if they take me,\u201d the woman asked the person on the other end of the phone. She couldn\u2019t stop trembling. <\/p>\n

Rivera, a \u200b\u200b38-year-old accountant, was born and raised in Magnolia Park, the daughter of Mexican parents from Nayarit and San Luis Potos\u00ed who arrived in the U.S. decades ago, worked hard and got lucky enough, Rivera said, to get American citizenship. <\/p>\n

Rivera lives seven minutes from where Salgado Araujo was shot to death. She said that her parents are the quiet types, never complaining out loud, just letting things be. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut this time, when they killed Mr. Lorenzo, I told my mom, \u2018Come with me to the protest.\u2019 And she came, along with my daughter,\u201d Rivera said. <\/p>\n

It was her mom\u2019s first protest. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are opening their eyes more and more,\u201d Rivera said. <\/p>\n

Francisco, who lives north of the city, came to Friday\u2019s vigil to pay his respects. Like Salgado Araujo, he said he immigrated from Mexico to pursue the American Dream and also made a living working construction. Now in his 60s, he said when he got his American citizenship years ago, he felt a great joy. <\/p>\n

Francisco, who declined to give his last name, said now he\u2019s embarrassed to be a citizen. He\u2019d rather tell people he\u2019s from Mexico. <\/p>\n

\u201cI no longer feel that joy.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"Candles, flowers and an American flag adorn the memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. Jon Shapley for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

Disclosure: DoorDash and The New York Times have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[56,3647,51280,27,29,28,6748],"class_list":["post-373880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-houston","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-photo-build","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-well-b-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373880","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=373880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}