A Mexican man living in the U.S. who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was not the person federal authorities had been targeting in a Houston operation, U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Democratic congresswoman, whose district includes the Houston neighborhood where the shooting occurred, said acting ICE Director David Venturella told her the agency has confirmed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo \u201cwas not a target.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salgado Araujo was a homebuilder who had lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, had no criminal record and was close to finishing the long process of obtaining legal status when he was killed early Tuesday morning, according to his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to do something. This is just one more death too many,\u201d Garcia said in an interview with MS Now. \u201cAnd if we\u2019ve got to bring outside, independent folks to come in and look at it, we should do that.”<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return an email seeking comment late Thursday.<\/p>\n
DHS, which oversees ICE, previously said that federal officers were conducting a targeted operation to arrest a person in the country without legal status when they attempted to stop a vehicle driven by Salgado Araujo. The agency has said Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle and that a federal officer fired a weapon in self-defense.<\/p>\n
Asked whether ICE agents had been specifically targeting Salgado Araujo, DHS said earlier Thursday that officers had been surveilling a property where they had previously observed two white vans.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn July 7, officers were almost at the target\u2019s address when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target. Officers then initiated the vehicle stop,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n
The federal agents weren’t wearing body-worn cameras, DHS said, and few photos or videos surrounding the shooting have emerged publicly in the days since the encounter, unlike other deaths involving federal immigration officers.<\/p>\n
In a statement, DHS said the agents at the scene in Houston had not yet been issued body cameras, which it blamed on Democrats and a record government shutdown that was fueled by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, a Democrat who also represents Houston, said if the agents didn’t have the devices, it was because Trump and Republican lawmakers did not want them to be carrying them.<\/p>\n
“Houston is done accepting excuses from an agency that has more money than it knows what to do with and still can\u2019t manage basic accountability,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The Harris County District Attorney’s office said it would conduct an investigation into the shooting. The office is consulting with local prosecutors in Minneapolis, where federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, to learn how they have navigated investigations into federal immigration agents, spokesperson Rafael Lemaitre said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough access to key evidence remains under federal control, we are pursuing investigative avenues available to us and will conduct a review of any information we collect within our reach,\u201d Lemaitre said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n
Three men, including Salgado Araujo\u2019s brother, were detained by ICE during the fatal traffic stop, according to Juan Proa\u00f1o, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, who has been communicating with their families.<\/p>\n
LULAC has yet to obtain video footage that clearly shows what happened during the moments of the shooting and has offered a reward of $5,000 for information from witnesses, Proa\u00f1o told The Associated Press. The position of Salgado Araujo\u2019s van and ICE vehicles has obstructed security camera footage LULAC has reviewed, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to make it even more difficult to find the truth in all this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
DHS said the ICE agents involved in the incident were expected to receive body-worn cameras in the next 60 days.<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the fatal Minneapolis shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Democrats had refused to fund ICE and the Border Patrol without changes to those operations designed to increase accountability and transparency. Republicans in Congress eventually passed legislation funding just ICE and CBP for three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Mexican man living in the U.S. who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was not the person federal authorities had been targeting in a Houston operation, U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said Thursday. The Democratic congresswoman, whose district includes the Houston neighborhood where the shooting occurred, said acting ICE Director David … Continue reading Mexican man killed in Houston ICE shooting was not the target of operation, lawmaker says<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1523233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-12 05:55:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1523233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1523234,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523233\/revisions\/1523234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1523233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1523233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1523233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}