ICE agent shoots, kills accused illegal immigrant in arrest attempt

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said one of its agents fatally shot a Houston man after he attempted to evade arrest Tuesday morning. The man, identified as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who lived in the United States illegally, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE agents conducted a traffic stop around 6:50 a.m. Tuesday as part of an operation to arrest an undocumented immigrant, DHS said. Araujo allegedly rammed his vehicle into an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused multiple verbal commands, and then attempted to run over an ICE officer. An agent fired his weapon in self-defense and hit Araujo, according to DHS. The immigrant was transported to the hospital, where he died from his injuries. FBI Houston will lead an investigation into the incident, DHS said.

Araujo’s son said in a statement that Araujo had been in the United States for nearly 35 years and was taking steps to obtain a work permit.

What response has Araujo’s death received? U.S. Reps. Sylvia Garcia and Christian Menefee, both Democrats representing Houston, called for an independent and transparent investigation into the shooting. The League of United Latin American Citizens, the country’s largest Latino civil rights organization, started a petition demanding that all evidence in the incident be released to the public.

Dig deeper: Read Josh Schumacher’s report from earlier this week on an Afghan man who died while in ICE custody.