This time, though, the family wasn\u2019t having it. Salgado Araujo\u2019s eldest son stood before cameras and delivered an emotional testimonial to his father that went viral<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a hardworking family man who never wanted his name to be known by anyone outside of his family,\u201d Ronaldo Salgado said at a news conference days after his father\u2019s shooting, as his brother held up a photo of their father.<\/p>\n Ronaldo Salgado stressed that the story of his dad ramming government vehicles could not be true. Their father had always taught his kids that if law enforcement attempted to pull them over, they were to pull off the road, hand over their license and registration and act respectfully.<\/p>\n In the end, authorities admitted Salgado Araujo was not the intended target of the operation.<\/p>\n In an interview with NBC News, Ronaldo Salgado said as immigration arrests became more prevalent in 2025, they talked to their father about the procedure if he had an encounter, including calling his family, and that they\u2019d contact their attorneys.<\/p>\n \u201cJust remember, don\u2019t sign anything. Call us,\u201d Ronaldo Salgado said he told his father.<\/p>\n Sitting at Las Perras Cafe in Houston, where a makeshift altar to his father sits in the corner, Ronaldo Salgado recited the names of those who had been killed by immigration officers, including Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Ruben Ray Martinez<\/a>, saying the country is not now safe because of their deaths.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are lives that are lost, and they need to be investigated, just like any other life lost. It needs to be investigated with the full cooperation of the agents involved and the agencies involved,\u201d the son said.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of this isn\u2019t making us any safer. How is going after my dad going to work making the city safer?\u201d Ronaldo Salgado said. \u201cCriminals don\u2019t wake up at 5 in the morning to pick up their crew and go to do a day of backbreaking labor. You don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n In an unusual move, federal officials made public an FBI search warrant to get inside Salgado Araujo\u2019s van after his death. Then, federal officials released a stinging detail: The bureau sought entry to look at baggies with crystals that they said resembled meth.<\/p>\n When he heard that, Ronaldo Salgado said he couldn\u2019t help but break into a little smile: \u201cOhhh, they messed up.\u201d<\/p>\n He knew what it was. And it would only make things worse for federal authorities. It was a homemade electrolyte mixture, mainly of salt, that his father later mixed into Gatorade for himself and workers to combat the triple-digit Houston summer heat outside.<\/p>\n The U.S. attorney\u2019s office later confirmed <\/a>that the mix was in fact not methamphetamine, surprising few who knew Salgado Araujo. <\/p>\n Ronaldo Salgado felt it was an effort to sully his father\u2019s reputation and dampen public outrage.<\/p>\n The implication just added to community anger,<\/a> viewed as a thinly veiled attempt at smearing the man immigration authorities killed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really shook the community,\u201d said Jasmine Khadem Gonz\u00e1lez, an immigrant rights organizer with the Houston Democratic Socialists of America. \u201cA lot of us who are Latino, we have somebody in our family: If it\u2019s not our father then it\u2019s our uncle who has a very similar job. \u2026 To see somebody like that be targeted for just being on his way to work or for the color of his skin or for the kind of truck that he\u2019s driving \u2014 because it\u2019s associated with Latino men \u2014 to see somebody like that be targeted for doing a very everyday thing. For just existing.\u201d<\/p>\n In the NBC News\/Telemundo poll, 31% of Latino voters say they or someone close to them started carrying identification over concerns about ICE enforcement, while 27% say they know someone who has been deported or detained by ICE in the last two years.<\/p>\n Amy Zachmeyer, the executive director of New Economy for Working Houston, a group that helped organize community vigils and demanded accountability and transparency in the probe, said the Salgado family\u2019s high-profile pushback kept authorities in check.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve shown incredible strength to be able to really defend their father,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Zachmeyer grew emotional as she spoke about the sons. \u201cThey never let a narrative set in that he was anything but a loving father, a Houstonian, a Texan, a hard worker.\u201d<\/p>\n Anger reshapes local politics<\/p>\n Adrian Garcia, a Harris County commissioner, said Latinos are \u201cfeeling a lot of attack and disrespect.\u201d Over the last year, he\u2019s worked to reach out to those who don\u2019t vote often. From his view, people now are willing to walk across broken glass to send a message to the Trump administration.<\/p>\n \u201cThe low-propensity voters that I\u2019ve been speaking to absolutely have a great intensity to vote in this election, and they specifically speak to ICE enforcement. A lot of young kids: \u2018I\u2019m voting for my mom. I\u2019m voting for my dad.\u2019 I hear that a lot,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n More Latino registered voters than ever \u2014 72% \u2014 rated their interest in the upcoming election as 10 out of 10 in the NBC News\/Telemundo poll.<\/p>\n Garcia described the greater impact that fear of immigration enforcement has had across the Texas economy.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not what our community deserves, and it is also what is impacting the things that we care about the most, the business, the economy. They\u2019re hurting the industry,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re hurting those who work hard and play by the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n Jareli Barrera, who works as a server at the popular Cielito Cafe in Houston, said she has never been so tuned into an election. Today, she said she\u2019s helping others, including co-workers, to register to vote.<\/p>\n She cannot stand seeing the level of fear in her community, including among those who are citizens but fear being separated from family or an aggressive encounter.<\/p>\n \u201cRepublicans are probably going to lose. It\u2019s not going to be the greatest thing for them at the end of the day,\u201d Barrera said. \u201cMost of these immigrants are the ones that are making the U.S. successful. They\u2019re doing the hard work. \u2026 If everyone\u2019s deported, who\u2019s gonna do the hard labor? Who\u2019s gonna construct? Who\u2019s going to do all this cleaning that they don\u2019t want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Since 2025, local activist groups have tried to work with the city of Houston to better protect Latinos as they watched intense enforcement operations in cities like Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Chicago upend life for residents and lead to encounters with immigration authorities that turned violent or deadly.<\/p>\n Jennefer Canales-Pelaez, a Houston-based senior policy attorney and strategist with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said Salgado Araujo\u2019s death was a \u201cculmination of years of Texas entrenching itself, entangling itself with ICE\u201d and \u201cillustrated to them the fear, the levels of persecution of justice that immigrant communities have been living with in Texas for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n Before Salgado Araujo\u2019s death, Canales-Pelaez was among those who worked to deter cooperation between Houston police and federal police agencies<\/a> and pushed for greater transparency into immigration operations. Abbott, the three-term governor and a staunch Trump ally who is up for re-election in November, threatened to block $200 million in grants to Houston<\/a> and other major cities if they didn\u2019t change local rules that directed police forces not to hold individuals they encounter for longer time periods to assist ICE. The cities, including Houston, reworded their ordinances.<\/a><\/p>\n Houston Mayor John Whitmire, a centrist Democrat, told The New York Times last October that he kept his head down as other city and state leaders in the country grew combative with the White House over immigration operations. Whitmire said his city had avoided \u201cturmoil\u201d<\/a> that others faced.<\/p>\n Whitmire initially declared his hands were tied after the shooting; the Houston Police Department had no jurisdiction <\/a>to conduct an independent investigation. After community uproar, the city changed course<\/a>. Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare has now launched a probe, with the county government approving the $2.5 million request to fund it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt ignited this flame and really showed other people that aren\u2019t necessarily living this experience or working in this line of work, \u2018Oh, this got to us,\u2019\u201d Canales-Pelaez said. \u201cWhen the mayor told us<\/a> that we weren\u2019t going to be another Minneapolis, we weren\u2019t going to be a Los Angeles, well, now we are. Someone\u2019s dead. That really has sparked this rage, this collective, righteous anger.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/261003-houston-latinos-ww-1054-378c2d.jpg\")
Ronaldo Salgado at a makeshift altar to his father, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, at Las Perras Cafe in Houston.Natasha Korecki \/ NBC News<\/p>\n