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HOUSTON (AP) – A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a man in Houston after he attempted to evade arrest in his vehicle during an operation Tuesday, the agency said.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, ignored commands and attempted to ram an agent who fired his weapon in self-defense. The man was targeted in an operation because he was living in the country without legal permission, according to the department, which oversees ICE. The man’s car struck an ICE vehicle, the department added.

Salgado Araujo died after being transported to a hospital, according to DHS.

The death drew immediate calls from some Democratic officials and immigrant rights groups for an independent investigation. Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who represents the neighborhood where the shooting took place, said the initial account released by federal authorities needs to be independently verified.

“All available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation,” she said in a post on X.

The FBI’s Houston field office is investigating a potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer, said spokesperson Connor Hagan. In addition, representatives of the office’s evidence response team responded to the shooting at the request of DHS to process the scene, he said.

The shooting comes amid a newly intensified push by the Trump administration to carry out its mass deportations agenda. During the five-day period at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people. The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests continue and are surging.

Son says his father had been in the US for decades

Juliet Martinez said she was on her way to drop off her son at summer school early Tuesday morning in Houston when she spotted two federal officers leaning over a man on the ground. As she slowly drove by, she filmed the man bleeding and handcuffed, his leg shaking as loud groans can be heard.

The video shows a black vehicle angled towards a white van, their doors wide open, and the man lying between the two. One officer is on the phone, with his other hand on the man’s side. Nearby, other federal officers stand over at least three other men handcuffed.

Ronaldo Salgado, Salgado Araujo’s son, said in a post on Facebook that his father works in construction and was on his way to work, picking up his workers, when the shooting happened.

Salgado described his father as a hardworking Mexican man who has been in the U.S. for almost 35 years and was in the process of getting a work permit.

“My father did not deserve this,” he said.

The shooting was at least the eighth death from an encounter with federal immigration officials since the start of the Trump administration’s intense immigration enforcement campaign in the U.S.

ICE has conducted ongoing operations in Houston

Texas’ largest city has experienced heightened enforcement operations since the crackdown began last year, and not without public backlash. The Houston City Council voted to pass an ordinance limiting ICE cooperation but reversed course after Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to cut more than $100 million in state funding for public safety.

By Tuesday evening, a small group of protesters gathered in the neighborhood where the shooting happened and chanted against ICE.

Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, called for a transparent investigation conducted by local authorities into the shooting. He said his organization is offering a $5,000 reward for information and videos from witnesses.

“We don’t take DHS at their word at all,” Proaño told The Associated Press. “There should be an independent investigation and they should release all the videos.”

Houston Mayor John Whitmire, a Democrat, declined to comment on the shooting.

Calls for video after the shooting

In other other shootings involving federal officers, initial descriptions by immigration officials have sometimes been contradicted later by video evidence. In February, federal authorities launched an investigation into two federal immigration agents who appeared to have made untruthful statements under oath regarding a nonfatal shooting of an immigrant in Minneapolis in January.

Last year, a federal immigration agent shot and killed a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, Ruben Ray Martinez, during a late-night traffic encounter. A grand jury declined to file criminal charges against the agent. DHS said the agent had fired at the vehicle after the driver “intentionally ran over” his fellow agent. Video footage of the encounter released by authorities does not clearly show the vehicle striking the agent.

In January, 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Good was shot in the head by a federal immigration agent during a crackdown in Minneapolis. DHS also said Good was trying to hit the agent with her vehicle, which local officials and witnesses disputed, saying she was only trying to drive away.

HOUSTON COUNTY (KETK) — A 9-year-old’s outcry about alleged sexual abuse led to the arrest of an East Texas man on Friday.

The Houston County Sheriff’s Office said the report first came in on June 29, where they learned the child had made an outcry of having been inappropriately touched by a known 37-year-old man.

A forensic interview was then conducted later that day, where the child’s allegations were confirmed. An arrest warrant was then obtained for Ellis Johnta Izquierdo for aggravated sexual assault of a child.

Five days later, on July 3, the Houston County Sheriff’s Office alongside DPS and Game Wardens, executed the warrant at Izquierdo’s home on FM 2663, just east of Latexo.

Izquierdo was then taken into the Houston County Jail on a $300,000 bond. Upon arrest, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole filed a motion to revoke his parole with no bond issued, the sheriff’s office said.

PLANO – Five defendants were sentenced to 903 months in federal prison as U.S. Attorney’s Office advances DOJ mission to protect the he Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative that was established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad.

Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. Continue reading Eastern District of Texas prosecutes five defendants

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to block Texas from enforcing a state law that requires apps stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for minors seeking to download apps or make in-app purchases on mobile phones.

Justice Samuel Alito, in a pair of one-sentence orders, denied petitions by plaintiffs who claim that the Texas App Store Accountability Act violates users’ constitutional rights to free speech.

Last month, a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law can take effect. The panel suspended a district court’s ruling last December that the law is unconstitutional.

The plaintiffs suing to block the law include the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is a defendant in both cases.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the law impermissibly seeks to limit access to content protected by the First Amendment, including news and educational material.

“Equity and the public interest support relief because protecting First Amendment rights — and parents’ rights to supervise their children as they see fit, not as the government tells them they should — is always in the public interest,” wrote attorneys for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas.

Attorneys from Paxton’s office argued that the law protects children from “dangerous modern products.”

“A child with access to an app store and a mobile device (such as a tablet or smartphone) can potentially download any number of software applications, potentially agreeing to invasions of the child’s privacy and sale of the child’s data and be exposed to any conceivable content without parental consent or even parental knowledge,” they wrote.

DALLAS (AP) – An Afghan national who fought alongside U.S. forces died from an allergic reaction while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one day after he was detained for deportation proceedings, his death certificate shows.

Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, 41, suffered “an adverse drug reaction” to an unidentified substance, which triggered anaphylaxis and exacerbated his asthma, according to the document. His March 14 death at a Dallas hospital was ruled to be an accident.

Paktiawal’s sudden death in ICE custody has drawn outrage because he had risked his life fighting as an ally of U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan for a decade. Members of Congress and an advocacy group, AfghanEvac, have demanded answers about what happened.

Out of more than 50 ICE detention deaths during President Donald Trump’s second term, Paktiawal’s is the first to be ruled an accident, according to tracking by The Associated Press. Most of the others have been blamed on natural causes or suicide.

On Monday, AfghanEvac called on Texas authorities to release his full autopsy report, which they have sought to withhold by arguing its disclosure would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation into the death.

“This family has a right to know what happened. Why won’t they release the report?” said Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac. He called on authorities to explain what substance triggered the allergic reaction, how it got into his system and why the date of the injury on the death certificate was listed as the day before Paktiawal was taken into custody.

Paktiawal was evacuated with thousands of others from Afghanistan when U.S. troops pulled out in 2021. He entered the U.S. through a legal process and requested asylum to stay. That claim was pending when ICE arrested him at his home in Richardson, Texas, on March 13 as he was taking some of his six children to school.

ICE has defended its decision to target Paktiawal for deportation, noting he had been arrested on food stamp fraud and theft charges. He has not been convicted in either case.
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A one-page ICE report on Paktiawal’s death said that he was screened at its Dallas field office and denied any medical conditions or allergies. Hours later, he began experiencing shortness of breath and chest pain in a holding room and was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

The next morning, hospital staff noted swelling of his tongue while he was eating breakfast and gave him epinephrine, a drug that treats allergic reactions, the report said. He was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later after life-saving measures were unsuccessful.

The certificate lists the cause of death as “anaphylaxis complicating acute asthma exacerbation.” Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction typically triggered by food, drugs or insect venom. The document lists the toxic effects of methamphetamine, heart disease and cigarette smoking as contributing factors in the death.

His family members and coworkers said they did not know Paktiawal to use meth, and a private autopsy performed for the family could not confirm whether he had meth in his system because no blood remained for testing, VanDiver said. His wife has said that he relied on an inhaler for asthma, but ICE agents rejected her attempt to give them the device when he was taken into custody.

The cause and manner of death were established by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office, where a doctor performed an autopsy on Paktiawal.

County authorities have refused to release the autopsy report, citing statements from ICE officials that doing so would interfere with a federal investigation into the death. They have asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office for permission to withhold the record under a “law enforcement exception” to the state’s open records law.

In response to the AP’s request for the report, Dallas County official Jennifer Rose wrote that “its release would interfere with the detection, investigation, and prosecution of a crime” but did not elaborate. The medical examiner’s office declined comment.

Paxton’s office hasn’t ruled on the matter, but previously granted a similar request from another Texas county to withhold the autopsy report of a Vietnamese man who died in ICE custody in July 2025, according to documents obtained by the AP.