(HOUSTON) — The man fatally shot during a traffic stop by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Houston this week was seemingly not the original target of the immigration enforcement operation, a Department of Homeland Security official told ABC News.
The DHS official said Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, “resembled the target.”
“After receiving a credible tip from our law enforcement partners, our officers conducted surveillance on a target’s address. Weeks prior to the incident, they noted two white vans at the property,” the official said. “On July 7, officers were almost at the target’s address when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target. Officers then initiated the vehicle stop.”
The Harris County Medical Examiner has listed Lorenzo Salgado’s death as a homicide. The primary cause of death was “penetrating gunshot wound of the torso,” according to the office.
The update from DHS comes as Salgado’s family and local officials are pushing for answers and demanding an independent and transparent investigation into the incident.
In a previous statement, ICE said officers attempted to stop a vehicle driven by Salgado Araujo around 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday as part of a targeted operation.
Salgado Araujo allegedly didn’t follow verbal commands, according to ICE, and the agency alleged that Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle” and tried to run over an officer during the stop, prompting the officer to fire their weapon “in self-defense.”
DHS said the shooting remains under investigation by its Office of the Inspector General.
Earlier Thursday, DHS said the ICE officers involved in the incident had not been issued body-worn cameras.
Salgado Araujo’s sons have called for an independent investigation into their father’s death, as they say they have many questions for ICE, including why he was targeted and why deadly force was used.
“My dad had no criminal history,” Ronaldo Salgado, 29, one of Salgado Araujo’s three sons, told ABC News on Thursday. “My dad, you know, wasn’t doing anything illegal. He was picking up his workers to go to work.”
Ronaldo Salgado said no one from DHS or ICE has contacted the family, and that he and only learned of their father’s death on social media, watching a Facebook post of his father, lying on the street after being shot.
“We still don’t have any answers,” Ronaldo Salgado said. “All we have to go for is their statement that they released.”
Four Democratic Texas congress members — Reps. Sylvia Garcia, Al Green, Lizzie Fletcher and Christian Menefee — have also called for an “immediate, fully independent, and transparent investigation” into Salgado Araujo’s death.
In a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Acting ICE Director David Venturella on Wednesday, the four lawmakers demanded answers to multiple questions about the incident, including whether the officers had body-worn cameras, and asked for the “complete, unedited body camera footage from all officers present at the incident, as well as all dash camera footage from both vehicles.”
Salgado Araujo, who had been in the U.S. for nearly 35 years, was undocumented, according to ICE. Ronaldo Salgado said his father’s priority had been providing for his family and getting his three sons through school, and that last year he had started the process of getting a work permit.
“I just want all Americans to know that my dad was a hardworking man, a family man who wanted nothing more than to put food on the table and to watch his sons achieve the American dream,” he told ABC News.
Three men, including Salgado Araujo’s brother, who were in the van being driven by Salgado Araujo were detained in the incident, according to the Texas congress members, who asked for an update on their current status in their letter to the DHS and ICE leaders.
The deadly shooting has sparked protests in Houston, with hundreds of people marching Wednesday through the neighborhood where the incident occurred.
In the wake of the shooting, Mexican officials said they plan to file criminal complaints over the deaths of Mexicans in the U.S. in connection with immigration operations.
Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary, Roberto Velasco, referenced Salgado Araujo’s death during a press briefing announcing the legal measures on Thursday, calling it a “painful situation,” and said Mexico’s president has instructed them to begin legal action to “protect the human rights of Mexicans in the United States.”
Regarding body-worn cameras, a DHS spokesperson said the officers involved in the incident were “not issued” them, pointing to two partial government shutdowns — one in the fall of 2025 and the other one earlier this year — for the delay in issuing cameras to ICE law enforcement officers.
“The process of purchasing and issuing body-worn cameras to all of our ICE field offices was interrupted by the Democrats multiple government shutdowns,” the spokesperson said. “Body cameras have been deployed to more than half the field offices with the remaining half to receive them in the next 60 days.”
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