A Mexican immigrant was shot and killed by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Houston, Texas, early Tuesday morning in what federal authorities have acknowledged was a case of mistaken identity — and the account given by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now being directly contradicted by witnesses who were present at the scene.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, a homebuilder who had lived in the United States for more than 35 years and had no criminal record, was driving his work crew — including his brother — to a construction site when two unmarked ICE vehicles began following his white van. DHS has said that officers, while heading to a target's address, spotted a van whose driver resembled the person they were looking for, and initiated a vehicle stop. Salgado Araujo was not that person. DHS claims he then "weaponized" his van by ramming an ICE vehicle and attempting to run over an officer, prompting the officer to fire in self-defence. The agency has provided no evidence to support that account.
Three men who were inside the van — all of whom were arrested and are now being held at a privately run ICE detention facility in Conroe, Texas — have given a starkly different version of events through their attorney, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra. According to the men, no ICE officer was ever positioned in front of the van, the vehicle was never used to ram anyone, and Salgado Araujo was shot through the passenger-side window from the sides of the vehicle. "At no point did they ever use the van to ram into the ICE agents and at no point were these ICE agents' lives ever in danger," Balderas-Ibarra said. DHS has called these allegations "categorically false." Crucially, the ICE officers involved were not wearing body cameras, and no dash-cam footage has been released, leaving no official visual record of the shooting. Texas Representative Sylvia Garcia confirmed the absence of cameras after speaking directly with ICE's acting director.
The case is now the subject of multiple investigations. The Harris County District Attorney has opened an inquiry, though his office was not invited to the scene. The FBI is separately investigating whether Salgado Araujo assaulted federal officers. Mexico's government has announced it will seek criminal charges related to the death. Salgado Araujo's family, who learned of his death through social media, has demanded a fully independent investigation, pointing to a pattern of DHS statements in previous fatal ICE shootings that were later contradicted by video evidence. The League of United Latin American Citizens has offered a reward for any video of the incident, though investigators believe surveillance cameras in the area were blocked by the vehicles' positions.
The killing has intensified scrutiny of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement campaign, under which ICE arrests have surged dramatically. There have been at least ten fatal shootings by federal immigration officials since January 2025. Critics and lawmakers are also alarmed that the three detained witnesses are reportedly being pressured to sign voluntary deportation orders — a move their lawyer warns would remove key witnesses from the country and undermine the integrity of any investigation. "Given the magnitude of this case," Balderas-Ibarra said, "it will all be out the window if they are deported." Salgado Araujo's family says he was close to completing the process of obtaining legal status when he was killed.