Houston and Harris County officials, together with relatives and attorneys of Mexican migrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, have accused the FBI and ICE of concealing crucial evidence and attempting to cover up the 52‑year‑old’s fatal shooting by an immigration agent in the city’s Magnolia Park neighborhood.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said federal agencies are keeping all evidence under strict control and have denied local authorities access to the truck in which the victim was travelling. Meanwhile, Mayor John Whitmire stated that the Houston Police Department offered to assist with the investigation, but the FBI continues to hold the evidence without sharing it.
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Domingo García, the family’s lawyer and a LULAC member, alleged that ICE lied both about its agents not wearing body cameras and about Salgado having tried to run over the officers. He noted that video footage taken after the shooting shows devices attached to the uniforms’ vests, and that the ramming narrative matches one previously used in similar incidents.
The official U.S. government account holds that agents were carrying out an operation to detain another migrant subject to an administrative order and mistakenly identified the vehicle. They claim Salgado ignored commands, collided with a patrol car, and attempted to strike an officer, who then fired in alleged self‑defence.
Congresswoman Sylvia García revealed, after speaking with interim ICE Director David Venturella, that neither Lorenzo nor his brother Víctor were the intended targets of the operation. ICE is withholding both the identity of the actual person sought and the name of the agent who fired the shots. The three other individuals who were in the truck, now held in an immigration detention centre, dispute the official narrative. Their attorney, Hugo Balderas, detailed that the survivors reject any claim of having crashed into federal vehicles or tried to run anyone over; they assert that no agent stepped in front of the truck and that bullet impacts entered from the vehicle’s sides.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a father. A husband. A brother. For 35 years, he built a life here and raised three sons.
On his way to work, ICE agents searching for someone else took his life.
I’m holding his family in my heart—and demanding accountability from this rogue agency.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 13, 2026
Attorney Domingo García further charged that Salgado was treated inhumanely after being struck by a gunshot to the torso – agents removed his wallet, handcuffed him on the ground while he lay dying, and transported him to hospital in that condition. Salgado, a native of Mexico, had lived in the U.S. for 35 years, worked as a carpenter, owned a construction firm with eight employees, and was nearing approval for permanent residency.
The family of Víctor Salgado, the victim’s brother and an eyewitness to the event, remains in hiding over fears that immigration authorities will arrest and deport them to block their testimony in any judicial proceeding.
The family’s legal team announced it will sue ICE and is coordinating efforts with the Mexican government, while civil‑society organizations have begun mobilizations and vigils outside Houston City Hall to demand an independent probe and full accountability.
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