ICE agent fatally shoots Houston man accused of trying to run over officer
By Alex Nguyen, Uriel J. García, Colleen DeGuzman and Stephen Simpson, The Texas Tribune
July 7, 2026
HOUSTON — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a Houston man after he tried to run over a federal officer conducting a vehicle stop Tuesday morning, according to an agency statement issued hours after the incident.
Federal agents were attempting to stop the vehicle as part of an unspecified “targeted enforcement operation” in a predominantly Latino neighborhood when Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — whom ICE identified as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico — attempted to evade arrest, according to the ICE statement.
Salgado Araujo allegedly attempted to ram an ICE vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands and tried to run over the ICE agent before the federal officer fired his weapon in self-defense, the statement said.
The shooting comes after federal immigration agents have faced scrutiny for a series of fatal shootings of American citizens in the past year and a half, some of which roiled the nation and led to fierce criticism of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration enforcement. Trump and his administration have routinely said they are targeting immigrants who have a criminal history, but the federal government’s data shows that a majority of the people ICE has arrested under the second Trump administration don’t have criminal convictions.
ICE’s description of the Houston shooting is similar to claims in other cases which were later contradicted by video evidence or eyewitness statements. By late Tuesday, no law enforcement or bystander videos had been released or emerged to corroborate or contradict ICE’s description of the Houston incident.
The Houston Police Department said Tuesday its officers were not part of the ICE operation and they only showed up afterward to help with directing traffic.
FBI Houston spokesperson Connor Hagan said the office is leading an investigation into the potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General is leading an investigation into the fatal shooting of the man, according to Hagan. DHS, which oversees all immigration agents, has not identified the immigration officer who shot Salgado Araujo, while Hagan referred questions about the agent back to ICE.
Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups quickly demanded an independent investigation.
“ICE’s actions across the country have caused them to lose the faith and confidence of communities,” said U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Houston. “We must ensure transparency in this investigation. My heart is with everyone impacted by this fatal shooting.”
DHS didn’t immediately answer The Texas Tribune’s questions about why ICE agents were trying to pull over Salgado Araujo or how he came onto ICE’s radar. According to a public records search, the only Texas resident by that name was a 52-year-old Houston man who has no criminal convictions in Texas.
Ronaldo Salgado identified himself as Salgado Araujo’s son on Facebook in a post that said his father lived in the United States for nearly 35 years and worked in construction to help provide for his family. Salgado did not respond to requests for an interview.
In the Facebook post, he said his father was in the “process of obtaining his work permit through the legal process” and “was on his way to work, picking up his workers” when the shooting happened.
The Houston Fire Department said dispatched medical responders found Salgado Araujo with a gunshot wound to his abdomen. He died at a local hospital, according to ICE.
“My father did not deserve this,” Salgado wrote.
The block where the incident took place is a mix of homes and businesses, such as a La Michoacana Meat Market and a local snack stand. The shooting occurred between a barbershop and a psychic reading shop, right by Houston’s Second Ward neighborhood where the average annual income, according to a 2022 report from the city, is around $52,000.
The predominantly Hispanic area of the city is a target of revitalization due to its proximity to downtown and the Port of Houston, and is the beneficiary of the 2026 FIFA World Cup upgrades being implemented across one of the country’s largest cities. As new development spills over from Houston’s downtown area into the East End, the region is becoming more residential, creating a mix of new buildings and old homes of Hispanic families who have lived there for decades.
Mildred Guerra, 23, an insurance agent who lives and works in the east Houston neighborhood, said recent ICE operations concern her.
“I’m very worried about our customers,” she said, adding that many of their customers have started calling in payments by phone rather than coming in person.
Calls for independent investigation
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, said the man’s family and her constituents “deserve a complete and transparent accounting” of the fatal shooting.
“ICE has released an initial account, but the facts must be independently and thoroughly investigated, including the circumstances that led to the use of deadly force,” Garcia said in a post on X. “All available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation.”
Alejandra Salinas, a progressive Houston City Council member, echoed that call along with Menefee, the Houston Democrat.
LULAC, the country’s largest Latino civil rights organization, started a petition demanding an independent investigation and requesting that “every piece of evidence” be released to the public.
The petition cites an unrelated case in Chicago in which a Border Patrol agent’s statements of firing in self-defense was disputed by video footage and his own text messages.
The Harris County District Attorney’s office said in a statement that the case was an “active federal investigation” but did not answer questions about whether its office was investigating the shooting or planned on presenting the case to a grand jury. It also did not answer a question about whether its civil rights division, which typically reviews police shootings in the county, has any staff assigned to investigate it.
“Our office will collaborate with federal authorities to ensure a thorough local review of the evidence,” the district attorney’s spokesperson Courtney Fischer said in a statement.
The Texas Department of Public Safety, which investigates police shootings around the state, did not immediately respond to questions about whether it is doing its own probe into Tuesday’s shooting.
Other immigration agents’ shootings
Salgado Araujo is the latest fatal shooting by an immigration agent in Texas and across the country since President Trump ordered his administration to crack down on immigration, following through with a vow that was at the centerpiece of his successful 2024 campaign.
On March 15, 2025, an ICE agent helping local police route traffic around an accident shot and killed 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island, where the San Antonio resident was celebrating his birthday with friends. ICE’s involvement in the shooting only became public knowledge after watchdog group American Oversight received documents about the incident as part of a public records request. DHS said agents shot Martinez after he tried to run over ICE agents. But video footage didn’t definitively show Martinez attempting to run over the agents. Lawyers for his family argue footage refutes the Trump administration’s claims.
A Cameron County grand jury in February chose not to indict the ICE officer who shot Martinez after the local district attorney presented evidence from the shooting.
Most notably, immigration agents in January fatally shot 37-year-old Renée Good and 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis during separate protests against immigration enforcement operations.
DHS claimed Good tried to run over ICE agents, but video footage of that incident caused some people to question whether Good attempted to run over the agents.
In Pretti’s killing, video footage showed Border Patrol agents had already restrained the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs nurse, who was armed with a handgun holstered on his hip, before two Border Patrol agents shot him 10 times.
Prosecutors have not criminally charged any of the immigration agents in connection to those Minneapolis shootings.
In October 2025, a Border Patrol agent shot Marimar Martinez five times during an immigration enforcement operation in Chicago.
DHS initially said that Marimar Martinez tried to ram agents with her vehicle before the Border Patrol agent exited his vehicle and fired his weapon. The federal government had originally charged Martinez with assaulting officers. But federal prosecutors later dropped the charges after evidence, including the agents text messages and video footage, showed that Martinez didn’t ram her vehicle into the agents.
Historically, it is rare for federal and local police officers to face criminal charges after shooting someone while on duty. But in May, Minnesota prosecutors charged Christian Castro, a 52-year-old ICE officer, in connection with the wounding of a Venezuelan man during an immigration operation in that state.
Many of the previous shootings have spurred backlash to Trump’s immigration enforcement and demands that federal agents scale down their presence and operations in U.S. cities.
Ayden Runnels, Colleen DeGuzman, Lomi Kriel and Stephen Simpson contributed to this story.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.