Earlier this year, At-Large City Houston City Council Member Alejandra Salinas successfully pushed through an ordinance limiting ICE\u2019s interaction with the Houston Police Department, but the policy was watered down after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull $114 million<\/a> in public safety funding from Houston just before the FIFA World Cup came to town.\u00a0<\/p>\n Salinas said at a July 22 community meeting at the Magnolia Multi-Service Center that, at the time of Araujo\u2019s shooting, Houston Mayor John Whitmire and Police Chief Noe Diaz said the city didn\u2019t have any jurisdiction to investigate. Whitmire and Diaz have since said they are cooperating with investigators and have turned over the official 911 call and video footage from a METRO bus. Whitmire has also called for a moratorium on ICE enforcement actions so agents can get trained in de-escalation tactics.\u00a0<\/p>\n Salinas also pointed out last week that HPD\u2019s average rate of monthly calls to ICE more than doubled, with over 100 calls made between April and June of this year and 19 Houstonians turned over to ICE custody. \u201cHPD should be focused on solving crime, not doing the job of ICE,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Council member Joaquin Martinez grew up in Houston\u2019s East End, the district he now represents and the neighborhood where Araujo was killed. At last week\u2019s Congressional Hispanic Caucus hearing, he said that when the government takes a life, it has an obligation to explain it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat obligation has not been met yet,\u201d he said. \u201cTrust in government has been damaged and that has consequences for every city in America. This tragedy is bigger than one incident. It has exposed the human cost of a broken immigration system and reminded us that the consequences of federal policies are felt first in our cities and our neighborhoods.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Lira said he supports Whitmire and Martinez, acknowledging that they\u2019ve taken a lot of heat for voting in favor of the \u201cAbbott amendment\u201d that walked back Salinas\u2019 ordinance limiting HPD cooperation. \u201cTwelve others voted for that amendment,\u201d Lira said. \u201cWhy haven\u2019t they been singled out? Why haven\u2019t they spoken up on this issue?\u201d<\/p>\n In response to a question on how ICE could be removed from Houston, Lira said that \u201chas to be done through Congress when they stop the funding for that agency and automatically the cause and effect would be to shut that agency down. The community can urge them to do that by strong advocacy. And we\u2019re hoping and praying that the Democrats get the majority in November.\u201d<\/p>\n Community activist Neil Aquino, founder of the Houston Democracy Project<\/a>, said the protesters aren\u2019t necessarily expecting that the Houston City Council will round up ICE agents and run them out of town.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFrom my perspective, council is just one place where protests are happening,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s decentralized. There are groups like [the Democratic Socialists of America] or an independent person standing on a bridge. There was a meaningful protest in Conroe, in Montgomery County. There\u2019s a new protest in League City, in Galveston County. And there is a belief that council can do something about it because they did pass an ordinance, which did for a week change how we interacted with ICE.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t tell you the motives of the groups, but what I think it\u2019s doing is we are organizing ourselves, as Houstonians,\u201d he added. \u201cWe are focusing on our own strength. What Mayor Whitmire and his council allies do is delegitimize protesters by implying they\u2019re ignorant. We understand that Donald Trump is [in power]. We understand that Greg Abbott makes threats to defund the police if we have an ordinance, but all of these people are elected officials who decided to be in office during an authoritarian white supremacist threat.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Houston City Council positions are nonpartisan, Aquino says there are six Republican members who could at any time say that the ICE shooting was wrong. Their silence is something he hopes voters remember when they go to the polls. \u201cThey\u2019re getting a free pass in many respects because authoritarianism requires a local infrastructure,\u201d he said. \u201cIf three council Republicans called a press conference and said ICE is wrong for Houston, that would make the news.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When asked whether a boycott on local businesses or weekly protests will reform ICE, Aquino says every protest, rally and march provides new connections and a learning experience for those involved. Every sizable protest in the Houston area now has volunteer medics and \u201cprotest marshals\u201d to ensure the environment is safe for attendees. \u201cWe did that ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t organize ourselves, we won\u2019t have any strength.\u201d<\/p>\n The council has historically responded to public pressure, Aquino pointed out, noting that Whitmire first said the city couldn\u2019t investigate because it lacked jurisdiction, then later said he would cooperate to the fullest extent possible and turn over any evidence his departments could gather.\u00a0<\/p>\n So what does Aquino want from the Houston City Council? \u201cWhat I want, at 58 years old, is free elections. I want ICE to stop killing people and violating due process. I don\u2019t want a masked secret police. And I want a city council and a mayor who will show up for me in that capacity. All we\u2019re asking for is to stop shooting people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Last Friday\u2019s two-plus-hour hearing<\/a> on Araujo\u2019s death ended shortly before investigators announced that a \u201ccrystal-like\u201d substance found in the slain man\u2019s van was in fact electrolyte powder, not methamphetamine. Critics have said the FBI\u2019s claim<\/a> that it suspected Araujo was in possession of narcotics was a flimsy attempt to paint the immigrant construction worker as a criminal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Araujo had no criminal record and was in the process of securing his citizenship. ICE agents admitted after the shooting incident that Araujo was not their intended target.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe can now confirm that the substance found in Lorenzo Salgado\u2019s van was not a narcotic or any other illicit substance,\u201d U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia wrote on social media on July 24. \u201cAs his family has said all along, this was an electrolyte powder to stay hydrated [while] working outside in the hot Texas summer. The attempt to cast a shadow over Lorenzo Salgado\u2019s name has failed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Teare has said that federal authorities have not been cooperative in sharing evidence with local authorities, which he says is unprecedented. The DA\u2019s office investigates every officer-involved fatality within its jurisdiction and is usually invited to the scene immediately, Teare said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Teare has filed for temporary visas so that the witnesses to Araujo\u2019s death \u2014 his brother Victor Salgado and work crew members Daniel Tirado Pantoja and Jos\u00e9 Trinidad Rojas \u2014 are not deported while the investigation is being conducted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Araujo\u2019s son Ronaldo Salgado, an American citizen and teacher at Houston ISD\u2019s Eastwood Academy, told Congress members how the morning of July 7 unfolded for him and his family.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe and my mom woke up before the sun,\u201d Salgado said of his father. \u201cShe cooked him a big meal to carry him through the day. He said goodbye to her and to our dog, said a prayer in his van and was out of the driveway before 6 a.m. to pick up his construction crew, men he\u2019d worked alongside for years, family men who took great pride in their craft to provide for their own families. One of these men was our dear uncle.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At 7 a.m., Salgado and his brothers heard from their mom that their dad was in trouble.\u00a0<\/p>\n Salgado said he learned from a Facebook post that there had been an ICE-related incident at Canal and Wayside in Houston\u2019s East End. He went to the site and saw his father\u2019s van but did not see his father. He said he asked law enforcement, homeowners and business people what happened but got no answers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI learned again from a Facebook post that our dad had been shot, not because I could see him but because I could hear his voice on videos posted online, crying for help,\u201d Salgado said. According to the witnesses, Araujo\u2019s last words were, \u201cMe estan matando,\u201d which translates to, \u201cThey\u2019re killing me.\u201d<\/p>\n Salgado was joined at last Friday\u2019s hearing by his brother, Lorenzo Salgado Jr., who described their father as a humble, hard-working family man who \u201cdidn\u2019t need anyone to know his name.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe taught us that good things come to those who work hard,\u201d Lorenzo Salgado Jr. said. \u201cAs a family, we talked more than once about what would happen if our dad encountered ICE officers. We dreaded the call but we were prepared. We believed there would be a process and that no matter what happened, there would be a way for our dad to come home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Teare, who took office in January 2025, has said he is confident his office will determine the identity of the ICE agent who fired the fatal shot but he doesn\u2019t believe that information will come from the federal government. \u201cWe do this every day,\u201d Teare said. \u201cWe are a massive office and we are really good at investigating cases. I can assure the public that we will be able to identify who killed Mr. Salgado and we will assess whether criminal charges are appropriate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Ronaldo Salgado said he believed his father would have stopped if the ICE agents had been in clearly marked vehicles and identified themselves. The family has maintained that Araujo likely thought the vehicles pursuing him were driven by thieves wishing to take his construction tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI know my father would have stopped his vehicle immediately if ICE agents had clearly identified themselves rather than aggressively approaching him in two unmarked vehicles without emergency lights on,\u201d Ronaldo Salgado said. \u201cThat must have been terrifying, not knowing who was after him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The brothers urged members of Congress to take action and demand justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was at Ben Taub Hospital, pacing through the hallways, waiting for an answer, the Congresswoman [Sylvia Garcia] stepped up and marched into the lobby in her powerful pink suit jacket and demanded to speak with the higher-ups to finally get the confirmation that my dad had died,\u201d Ronaldo Salgado said.<\/p>\n Garcia, represents the Magnolia Park area where Araujo was killed, but will lose that part of her district at the end of the year due to a Republican-led gerrymandering effort that passed last summer. Garcia said at last week\u2019s hearing that parents in the community are afraid to drive their children to school; laborers are afraid to go to work; and seniors are afraid to go to church, buy groceries and go to doctor\u2019s appointments.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOn July 7, our community\u2019s worst fears became a tragic reality when a federal enforcement operation ended with the death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cSince that day, families across Houston have been asking the same questions: How did this happen? Could it have been prevented? Who will be held accountable?\u201d<\/p>\n Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, along with Houston-based U.S. Reps. Lizzie Fletcher and Christian Menefee, questioned during last week\u2019s hearing why the ICE officers weren\u2019t wearing body cameras and didn\u2019t have dash cams in their vehicles, even though Congress allocated more than $20 million last year for such equipment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Congressman Adriano Espaillat, D-New York, who chaired the hearing, said the entire nation \u201cis watching this case.\u201d Espaillat became in 2017 the first formerly undocumented immigrant elected to the U.S. Congress. He noted during the hearing the similarities between Araujo\u2019s death and that of 25-year-old Johan Sebasti\u00e1n Guerrero, who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Biddeford, Maine, just a week later.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEight people have been killed at the hands of federal immigration officers, including two U.S. citizens in the state of Minnesota,\u201d Espaillat said. \u201cThese two tragedies could have been prevented. They are the result of a mass deportation effort led by this [Trump] administration that has allocated $113 billion to ICE, setting arrest quotas at 2,000 per day. Twelve thousand ICE recruits have been hired. There\u2019s been a surge in hiring and a reduction in training. The use of deadly force has not been addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n ICE, the FBI and the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security were invited to the hearing and refused to attend, Espaillat said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ronaldo Salgado asked that the members of Congress use their authority to demand justice for their father and for the families of others who have died at the hands of federal agents.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEvery single member of Congress has immigrants living in your states, in your districts, in your neighborhoods,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat is being done to make sure that they can live without fear, to make sure that they won\u2019t be next?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The brothers called for a \u201cthorough, truly independent investigation, not one where the agency under investigation also controls the evidence and is able to unilaterally clear its own personnel of any wrongdoing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n They asked that the timeline of the investigation be made public and that every piece of evidence be preserved and shared, including recorded radio traffic, agency communications and any video or audio footage that exists. They also demanded the immediate release of the three members of Araujo\u2019s work crew.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRemoval of these individuals and a failure to assure them of their safety would amount to nothing less than a cover-up,\u201d Ronaldo Salgado said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lorenzo Salgado Jr. urged those in attendance at the hearing and those watching the livestream to \u201ctry to put yourselves in my and Ronnie\u2019s shoes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI want you, in your mind, to think of a loved one \u2014 your brother, your father, your cousin, a beloved co-worker,\u201d he said. \u201cPicture their face and silently say their first and last name. Picture that loved one\u2019s face, pinned to the ground, in pain and yelling out in desperate need of help. Picture the anger and helplessness of watching that person bleed out in a video on your phone. What would you do after? How would you cope with the feeling of losing your protector, your role model, your mother\u2019s loving partner, your grandmother\u2019s little boy?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t cower and let bygones be bygones,\u201d he added. \u201cYou would surely move mountains, go hungry, without sleep, marching incessantly toward the slow beating drum of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ronaldo Salgado wiped tears from his eyes as he sat before a panel of U.S. Congress members last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[17827,226,56,4626,58,57,59885,3743,129319,81132,86161,129322,22162,80262,13542],"class_list":["post-388912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-alejandra-salinas","tag-homepage","tag-houston","tag-houston-city-council","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-ice-protests","tag-john-whitmire","tag-lorenzo-salgado-araujo","tag-lulac-council","tag-neil-aquino","tag-ronaldo-salgado","tag-sean-teare","tag-sergio-lira","tag-sylvia-garcia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388912","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=388912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Justice-for-Lorenzo-1.jpeg\")
Protesters carry signs during a rally at Ervan Chew Park in Montrose on July 19. Credit: April Towery<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Ronaldo-and-Lorenzo.png\")
Ronaldo Salgado, left, and Lorenzo Salgado Jr. testify at a July 24 hearing of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Houston. Credit: Screenshot<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Lorenzo-Salgado-Araujo.jpg\")
A makeshift memorial of the site where Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was fatally shot on July 7 was still in place on the morning of July 27. Credit: Neil Aquino<\/p>\n