Maria Rosales stands in a Montrose park carrying a sign emblazoned with the image of a man she’s never met. She’s slathered in sunscreen to protect against the 94-degree temperatures that have become familiar at the many outdoor protests over the past 12 days. She does it, she says, because Houstonians should be able to drive to work on a Tuesday morning without getting detained, deported or shot.
“I never met Lorenzo, but he’s my brother,” Rosales says.
Longtime Houston resident Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was gunned down in his work van by an unidentified ICE agent on July 7. The community continues to rally in support of a pair of independent investigations led by Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare and the Texas Rangers that they say they hope will translate to sweeping policy changes. What they really want is to abolish ICE or at least get the immigration agency out of Houston.
Members of the national organization Socialist Alternative are gathering at 6 p.m. Monday, July 20, at Houston Liberation Center, 2903 Telephone, to organize the community for a day of no work, no school and no shopping on Friday, July 24. Residents of Minneapolis coordinated a similar “shutdown” following the deaths of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents earlier this year, and the presence of federal agents was reduced there after the uprising.
“When ICE invaded Minneapolis in January, ultimately the labor movement shut down much of the city and that movement was responsible for kicking ICE out,” said Socialist Alternative member Brian Harrison. “We’re trying to do that in Houston and hit the billionaires where it hurts, in their profits.”
At a protest and march around Ervan Chew Park on Sunday, hundreds of residents called for local policies to protect immigrant communities, an end to the collaboration between the Houston Police Department and ICE, and the immediate release of three witnesses who saw an ICE agent fatally shoot their friend Araujo in broad daylight on the streets of Houston.
Araujo, 52, was driving to his job as a home builder just before 7 a.m. on July 7 when officers in unmarked vehicles attempted to make a traffic stop. Their vehicles had no lights or sirens, and Araujo’s family has said it’s likely he thought the people were trying to rob him and take his tools. They say tool theft is a common practice that can destroy a small business.
Araujo had lived in the United States for 35 years and federal officials have said he was not the intended target of the ICE operation that day. Shortly after the shooting, ICE issued a statement that alleged Araujo ignored verbal warnings, rammed one of their SUVs with his van and “weaponized” his vehicle in an attempt to run over an officer, prompting the ICE agent to open fire into Araujo’s van in self-defense.
The officers weren’t wearing body cameras and their vehicles weren’t outfitted with dash cams. U.S. Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, who represents the Magnolia Park area where Araujo was killed, says the unmarked federal vehicles on the scene showed no signs of being “rammed.” The allegations made by ICE have been disputed by three men, including Araujo’s brother, who were in the van and witnessed the incident. The witnesses were taken into custody and are being held at an ICE detention center in Conroe.
Monse Montalvo was among the protesters at Sunday’s rally. She came to Brazoria County from Mexico with her parents as an infant and is a DACA recipient. When she was 16 years old, her father, a construction worker, was deported. She doesn’t know if he’s still alive.
“When I heard the news about Lorenzo, it felt like I was losing my own father,” she said. “It was so heavy. If you come for one of us, you really do come for all of us. At this point, it’s not about legal status. They’re racially profiling. It doesn’t matter if you have a work permit and a driver’s license. We all have a target on our backs.”
Montalvo says the last time she saw her father, he said to her, “You are American so stand up and show up like you are American. This is your home.”
Last week, federal authorities claimed that small plastic bags of a “crystal-like substance” were found on the dashboard of Araujo’s van and they suspected the substance was methamphetamine. Attorneys for the three witnesses responded that the substance was granulated salt for a homemade electrolyte mixture they use while working outdoors in the Texas heat.
Teare and attorneys for the witnesses — Victor Salgado, Daniel Tirado Pantoja and José Trinidad Rojas — said last week they have begun the process of securing temporary work visas to block the deportation of the witnesses.
Numerous vigils, rallies and protests have been held since the shooting occurred. In addition to the independent probes being led by the Texas Rangers and Harris County DA, the FBI is also investigating, but many Houstonians say they don’t trust that a federal agency will provide an honest representation of what happened. More than 100 people spoke at a Houston City Council meeting last week calling for ICE to be removed from Houston.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire welcomed the grieving speakers at the council’s public comment session then later said some were disrespectful, disruptive, took the Lord’s name in vain and used profanity. Undeterred by the mayor’s reprimand, many at Sunday’s protest carried signs that read, “Chinga la migra.”
Kaya Candia is originally from the Rio Grande Valley but now lives in Willis. She drove to Sunday’s protest because “no one deserves to die for going to work and wanting to have a better life.”
“This man was doing everything right and he was murdered for it,” she said. “That’s not OK. That’s not right by any standards. I came to Houston so we can have our voices be amplified. What happens in the streets ends up changing the [legislative] seats. That’s what we need right now.”
Sunday’s protest began at the same time as the World Cup final match between Argentina and Spain and spanned several hours. Houston campaign events were also held Sunday afternoon for Harris County judge hopeful Letitia Plummer and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico.
Some of the 200-or-so attendees at the Ervan Chew Park protest early Sunday afternoon said they wanted to make the message clear that the status quo of an aggressive ICE regime is not acceptable. The crowd grew to more than 1,000 around 5 p.m., and Araujo’s sons Ronnie and Lorenzo Jr. addressed the crowd.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a pause on non-urgent ICE traffic stops last week but within 24 hours, President Donald Trump said they should resume.
At least 22 people have died in ICE custody this year, and 10 have been fatally shot by federal agents. Although Araujo was undocumented, he was in the process of getting his citizenship and had no criminal record. A week after Araujo’s death, 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was fatally shot in Biddeford, Maine, under similar circumstances: he wasn’t the intended target of an immigration sting and officers fired into his vehicle after claiming he’d been uncooperative.
Several news outlets reported over the weekend that the officer who shot Guerrero had suffered a severe head injury in 2021, had previous complaints of violence against him and was unable to complete a firefighter training exam due to the head trauma, raising questions about the training and vetting process for ICE agents. The name of the officer who opened fire on Araujo has not been released.
Following a public viewing and memorial service for Araujo on July 16, the slain man’s son Ronnie Salgado, a Houston teacher and American citizen, issued a statement of gratitude on social media to elected officials and community members who have supported the family.
“I can’t even begin to describe the emotions I have about my dad’s viewing,” Salgado said. “I want to thank the entire Houston community at large. Y’all wrote letters (we intend to read each one), gave us pictures, shed tears, and shook our hands. Y’all gave us words of consolation and motivation. You took the time out of your day to get in line to pay respects to a complete stranger, or someone you may have met briefly. Houston is such a wonderful place full of love. My dad made the right choice in choosing this place to spend the rest of his life and raise his family, surrounded by a strong community that supports and watches each other’s backs.”
As for Montalvo, she says she won’t rest until there’s justice for Lorenzo and Houston’s immigrant community.
“We’re losing our parents to the American dream,” she says. “When we decide to cross borders, it’s not always because we want to; it’s because we have to. We’re not abandoning our dignity at the border and we don’t exchange our chase of the American dream for human rights. The worst feeling is the impotence. This is our community, and these are our people.”
