A crowd of about 70 gathered outside the Capitol today to protest the death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national shot by ICE agents in Houston on Tuesday.
The group lined Lincoln Street to draw attention from passing traffic, using chants, signs, and a small impromptu orchestra to spread their message.
The chants included slogans such as “no justice, no peace, get ICE off our streets,” “no Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” “f*ck ICE,” and “justice for Lorenzo.”
A flyer described the event as a “rally to protest ICE murder.”
“Off your phones and into the streets,” stated the flyer. “Silence is not the answer.”
Salgado Araujo was shot while driving to a job site, during what ICE described as a “targeted enforcement operation,” according to The Guardian.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has claimed that its agents attempted to stop the vehicle before Salgado Araujo attempted to ram the agents, who then opened fire in self-defense, fatally hitting Salgado Araujo.
But the lawyer for other passengers in the van has said that his clients told him that, “at no point was there ever an ICE agent directly in front of the vehicle. … They also confirmed that the shots came from the sides, not from the front, which is inconsistent with the ICE statement.”
The ICE agents’ vehicles were reportedly unmarked, and none of them were wearing body cameras.
Houston Public Media reported that “a spokesperson for DHS, which is overseen by the administration of Republican President Donald Trump, blamed Democrats while saying the ICE agents involved in the Houston shooting did not have body cameras.”
According to the New York Times, the incident in Houston is “at least the 21st shooting by agents involved in President Trump’s deportation crackdown since he took office for his second term in January 2025.”
It also reported that the language used by DHS and ICE to describe the situation is “the same language that federal officials have used repeatedly to describe other shootings by immigration agents. In many instances, those initial descriptions — including claims that officers had been assaulted or injured — later unraveled in court.”
