The family of a Mexican immigrant who was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent on Tuesday in Texas called for an independent investigation into his killing, as questions swirl around federal officials’ claims and lack of transparency.
“He did not deserve to die,” said Ronaldo Salgado, the son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, during a press conference led by the League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac) on Wednesday in Houston, Texas.
Salgado, 52, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official on Tuesday morning, while on his way to work at a construction site. Salgado’s family said he was a “hardworking family man”, had lived in the US for more than 30 years and was in the process of obtaining his work permit.
Salgado’s family, including his wife and three sons, found out about his death from news reports. Neither ICE nor local officials informed the family, they said, despite Ronaldo Salgado visiting the site of the shooting to search for answers on Tuesday morning.
Civil rights groups and elected officials also called for independent investigation into the shooting, questioning claims by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS has repeatedly come under fire for false and misleading statements and a lack of transparency with ICE-related deaths.
According to a DHS statement, ICE officials were conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” in Houston. The department accused Salgado of having “weaponized his vehicle” to run over an ICE official, “resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense”.
The DHS announced that the department’s inspector general’s office and the FBI are investigating the events, but Salgado’s family, lawmakers and officials are calling for local Houston officials to independently investigate.
The Houston mayor’s office on Wednesday stopped short of announcing an independent investigation, saying local city officials do not hold jurisdiction over federal law enforcement matters. Instead, Houston’s mayor, John Whitmire, said during a city council meeting that he was insisting on a “transparent, independent investigation” by federal authorities.
The DHS’s statement on Tuesday evening echoes similar statements by the department. In January, the DHS justified the fatal shooting of Renee Good by claiming she “weaponized her vehicle” against an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Video of the shooting later cast doubt on the DHS’s claims.
Roman Palomares, the national president of Lulac, a civil rights organization that is helping the Salgado family, criticized ICE and the DHS for their claims during Wednesday’s press conference.
“We do not believe you, you have not earned that trust,” Palomares said. “ICE has not earned that trust from the American people.”
Three other co-workers were also in the van that he was driving when they were targeted by ICE, according to social media video and Ronaldo. The three others were arrested by ICE. One of those men was Ronaldo’s uncle, he said.
“All three men were rounded up,” Ronaldo Salgado said during the press conference. “We have not heard from them, but I hope they are able to provide their own statements to prove that my father feared for his life as unmarked cars followed my dad, who only wanted to get back to work and back to us.”
Salgado was a longtime construction worker in Texas, his family said during Wednesday morning’s press conference. He was a man of routine, Salgado’s son said, who left early in the morning every day to pick up construction co-workers and headed to work sites to help build homes.
“He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,” Salgado’s son, Ronaldo, said. Tuesday’s events related to Salgado’s shooting have been “vividly playing in my head over and over again”, he added. Lulac and Salgado’s family launched a GoFundMe to raise money for legal and funeral expenses.
The congressional representative Sylvia Garcia has also called for an independent investigation into the shooting.
“All available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation,” Garcia wrote on X. “The victim’s family, my constituents, and the entire community deserve a complete and transparent accounting of what happened.”
Federal immigration officials have been involved in at least 23 shootings since January 2025. In addition to Good, federal agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti in January.
In another case in Minneapolis, an ICE official chased a man, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, and fired his gun into the front door of his home. The official claimed he was beaten with a shovel and fired in self-defense. But video later contradicted the officer’s claims. The ICE officer was charged in May with assault and for falsely reporting a crime.
Earlier this year, local Minnesota law enforcement authorities investigating Pretti’s shooting said the FBI refused to share evidence on its investigation. The FBI also refused to share with state officials information related to the shootings of Good or Sosa-Celis.
In March of 2025, an ICE official shot and killed a 23-year-old US citizen named Ruben Ray Martinez in Texas. Martinez’s death was not made public for nearly a year. According to congressional Democrats, the DHS “falsely” claimed that Martinez struck a federal agent with his vehicle.
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