Guests
- Cesar Espinosaexecutive director of the Houston-based civil rights organization FIEL, Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight.
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Immigration and civil rights advocacy groups are demanding an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant and father of three who was killed by ICE agents in Houston on Tuesday morning. Salgado Araujo, who had been living in the United States for nearly 35 years, worked in construction and was starting his day by picking up other workers in Magnolia Park, a historically Latino neighborhood, when ICE agents targeted him. The Department of Homeland Security says Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle” and attempted to ram agents, a claim made in previous ICE killings that has fallen apart under scrutiny. This latest death comes exactly six months after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis under similar circumstances.
We speak with Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the Houston-based civil rights organization FIEL, Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight. He says the community is demanding answers, including the release of any available video of the incident.
“Everything is hush-hush,” he says of the Homeland Security response. “They don’t want to release anything. We don’t even know if there’s bodycam footage.”
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
In Texas, immigration and civil rights advocacy groups are demanding an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant and father of three U.S. citizens, who was killed by an ICE agent in Houston during an attempted traffic stop. He had been living in the United States for nearly 35 years. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo worked in construction. On Tuesday morning, he was starting his workday by picking up other workers in Magnolia Park, historically Latino neighborhood, when ICE targeted him.
This is his son speaking at a news conference Wednesday.
RONALDO SALGADO ARAUJO: I want to tell you about my dad. He was a hardworking family man who never wanted his name to be known by anyone outside of his family. He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people. He was also a man of routine. For the majority of the last 35 years of his life in the United States, he began the same — he began the day the same way and always ended it by coming home, sitting on the porch, eating a hearty meal made by my mother, going to sleep, and doing it all over again the next day.
Let me tell you about my father’s last day alive with as much detail as possible, because it’s vividly replaying in my head over and over again. At 5 a.m., my mom and dad woke up before the rest of the world did. My dad brushed his teeth. He showered. My mom cooked him a huge meal for him to eat that day. At 5:50, my dad got dressed, grabbed his lunch and coffee, hugged and kissed my mom goodbye, slipped on his hat for the day, loaded his lunch, his work boots, his coffee in his work van. He patted our dog on his head goodbye and drove off to pick up his crew for work. At 6:45 a.m., he should have been picking up the last of his guys before heading to North Houston to finish up construction on some houses. Five minutes later, unbeknownst to me, at 6:55, unbeknownst to all of us, my dad had been shot inside his van near the intersection of Wayside and Canal by ICE agents in unmarked cars.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Ronaldo Salgado, the son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. Ronaldo also said that the three other people in the car, including his uncle, were taken into custody and have not been heard from since.
Following the shooting, ICE claims Salgado Araujo had ignored verbal commands and rammed their vehicle and that an agent fired on him in self-defense. Local elected officials and civil rights advocates are demanding the release of the video footage and an independent investigation.
This is Roman Palomares, the national president of LULAC — that’s the League of United Latin American Citizens — speaking at Wednesday’s news conference in Houston.
ROMAN PALOMARES: We are here today because, in the absence of facts from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, we are left with no choice but to conclude that a man was unlawfully killed on the streets of Houston yesterday morning, barely 24 hours ago. His name was Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. Say his name, because no one else — ICE does not want you to say that name.
Today, we stand here as a community, and we demand — OK? — LULAC today is demanding. OK? We are not asking. We’re not requesting. We are demanding the truth. It is unacceptable, it is un-American, to use lethal force against a human being, then lock away the evidence, hide the video, silence the record, and expect his family, the people of Houston and the American public to simply nod and say, “We believe you,” because we don’t. We do not believe you. You have not earned that trust. ICE has not earned that trust from the American people. Your pattern has been one of inaccuracies, of prejudicial leaks before the facts are known, of twisting the narrative to fit your version of events.
AMY GOODMAN: The fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo came on the six-month anniversary of the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.
For more, we go to Houston to speak with Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the civil rights group FIEL, Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight. He was at Wednesday’s news conference.
Thanks for joining us. Our deepest condolences for the whole community. Cesar, talk about what you know and how the federal government has responded. Why haven’t you been able to see the video of what happened?
CESAR ESPINOSA: Well, I mean, it’s been really complicated. And we’ve seen time and time again, after ICE does these killings, after they do these acts — which they start, by the way — all of a sudden, you know, everything is hush-hush. They don’t want to release anything. We don’t even know if there’s bodycam footage that exists, because ICE agents are not mandated to wear body cameras or have them running. And so, there’s — or, at this point, there’s — and being this soon, there’s so many questions that are left unanswered. And at the end of the day, the community, the family and the United States and every single person in this country deserves an answer.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about what Ronaldo said, that his father was being followed by unmarked cars, likely afraid for his life, that if he had known he was being followed by law enforcement, he would have followed the protocol, but he had no idea what was going on?
CESAR ESPINOSA: Amy, we hear this all the time. People are saying, “Well, why don’t people comply? Why don’t they — why don’t they just stop?” But I want people to put themselves in these immigrants’ shoes or these people. All of a sudden, they are being approached by unmarked vehicles. These vehicles, many times, often, start ramming vehicles, trying to get them to stop, trying to get them — force them to stop. And when people jump out, they’re not wearing insignia, you know, saying “federal agents” or ”ICE” or a badge. They’re wearing, a lot of the times, plain clothing with vests that just say “police.” I mean, we’ve heard, in this entire time, that there’s people impersonating ICE agents and things like that. So, I cannot imagine the fear that a lot of people feel when they are being persecuted by somebody that’s unknown. And I ask people, you know, put yourself in these folks’ shoes and ask yourself: How would you react?
AMY GOODMAN: So, Cesar, there were three other people in the vehicle with Lorenzo, reportedly rounded up after the fatal shooting. Where are they? Who are they?
CESAR ESPINOSA: We know that one of them is Lorenzo’s brother, or, you know, Ronaldo’s uncle. The other two gentlemen, we don’t know who they are. And we don’t know where they are at right now. As it happens, a lot of the times with immigrants, once they get put into the system, it can take anywhere from 48 to 72 hours, to sometimes even weeks, for us to be able to find them.
What we have heard, though, from — and it’s very troubling to hear this from some of the other family members, is that they’re being told to sign voluntary departures. They’re being told to, you know, cooperate with the version that ICE has released, so that, you know, they can basically — threatening them that they’re going to file charges if they don’t, or that they’re going to be deported expeditiously. And what we fear is that this is another effort from ICE to cover up something that they did very, very wrong.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, if you can talk about the rising deployment of federal immigrant agents to Houston and surrounding areas, and the role of the Trump ally, the Texas Governor Greg Abbott?
CESAR ESPINOSA: Well, you know, one of the things that we’ve seen over the last year and a half is we’ve really seen a vamping up of state troopers and forces that are mandated by the governor of Texas, trying to emulate what the federal government is doing. And we’ve seen that rise in our area. In the last couple of weeks, we had heard reports of more ICE sightings, and it was just a matter of time before this happened. And we don’t want these things to happen. We don’t. You know, it’s unfathomable what this family is going through, and our condolences go to the — to Lorenzo’s family. But at the end of the day, we must do everything we can to make sure that they get the transparency and justice that they deserve.
AMY GOODMAN: Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL, Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight, speaking to us from Houston. We’re going to stay in Texas.
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