I had flown to Mexico for a family reunion on July 7. As soon as we arrived and were driving out of Monterrey International Airport, I received a call from my wife in Houston with the tragic news. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo had been shot dead in Magnolia Park by a masked ICE agent. It struck my soul profoundly.
Magnolia Park is the community I grew up in. I helplessly saw the photos of the man on the floor and the video of the young man killed similarly in Maine. Both thrown on the ground after being shot with ICE agents’ knees on their backs as if they posed a danger and were resisting arrest. They were thrown to the ground like a deer thrown on the back of a truck after being killed by green camouflage sports deer hunters. Those jarring images are not etched in our social consciousness.
On July 25, I participated in a march organized by members of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic church, the deacon, Martin Pena, and the Migration with Dignity Coalition organized The Houston United in Prayer on Saturday, July 25 mass and march from the church to the site of the killing.
After participating in many marches for decades, this march was different. It was spiritual and divine. Most Latinos are Catholics, and the Catholic religion is part of the Mexican culture for centuries. It is not separate. If we pause and look closely, roses of the cross, images of La Virgen de Guadalupe, the rosaries, the candles at the memorial site like the ones we have in our homes in our altars.
This march was led by the church’s deacon who read the 14 Stations of The Cross with a loudspeaker in the front pickup truck that led the procession. This prayer is recited during Lent. It helps to reflect on Jesus’s love and suffering in a quiet and personal way.
I have lived in Houston all my life due to my birthright citizen status. My grandfather, Raymond Lira, fought in Germany against the Nazis and tyranny. We must continue to stand up and speak out against any form of tyranny in this country. I would like the larger public outside of Magnolia Park or the East End to know that there are three devasting incidents that have seriously wounded our community. These three rises high above all the injustices inflicted on our Houston Latino community.
The first wound to our community was the death of Vietnam arm veteran Jose Campos Torres by HPD and the subsequent gut wrenching $1 fine given to the police officer who were found guilty of throwing him in the Buffalo Bayou in handcuffs. I do not believe our community has fully healed, even after an apology was given by the mayor and police chief 40 years later.
I recall standing in the crowd at city hall 45 years ago, shouting, “Justice for Jose Campos Torres!” as Margarita Torres, the mother of Jose Campos Torres stood strongly asking for justice as many have done these two past weeks asking, “Justice for Lorenza Salgado Araujo.”
The second tragedy that rocked our community and the nation was the death of Vanessa Guillen, a former student of Cesar Chavez High School. These students are the gem of our community; they are all entitled to a great future. Her death and the echoing cries from her mother, Gloria, asking for justice still reverberates in my soul when I see young Latinas serving in the military.
The family’s outcry and determination to keep Vanessa Guillen’s memory alive has led to change: The Vanessa Guillen Act. Marches, protests, social media supported the family and helped to shape public opinion. This contributed with federal legislation to help protect young military officers from sexual assault or abuse withing their own ranks – the military in general.
Next, the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo is the third devasting killing that has rocked me and my community in my lifetime in Houston. I hope it is the last.
In order for it to be the last, things must change. Public opinion formed from every segment from our city and it must be immense so that it reaches the hearts of Republicans. Public opinion includes collective ideas from activists, elected officials, the business and corporate community, religious leaders, and social media positive influencers, the Black community, the Asian Pacific Islanders, and moderate Republicans.
The only answer to stop mass deportations is an amnesty program for 2027 or 2028. In other words, a solid and pragmatic bipartisan Immigration Reform Act like the one passed over 40 years ago under the Ronald Reagan presidency called the 86 Immigration Reform Act.
A bipartisan act that includes, but is not limited to: DACA recipients, immigrants in this country longer than 10 years who have no criminal record, the spouses of U.S. citizens who have no criminal records, and immigrant medical, science and engineers who make our country competitive globally, foreign academics who teach our youth skills from other advanced countries to make all American students highly skilled.
We are a young country; we do not know everything. We are not too big and powerful to learn from others.
I am hopeful and glad that the Greater Houston Partnership supports immigration reform. It is critical for needed Republican support for the passage of any immigration reform. Elected Republicans must feel the pressure from the business community rather than just from the MAGA base. We all witnessed the FIFA economic boost to our city by many immigrants: legal and undocumented who spent billions in our city.
Many business individuals have become wealthy from the cheap labor of many immigrants and benefitted from the essential workers in grocery stores, small businesses, restaurants, hotels, cleaners, landscapers, nannies, school janitors, cafeteria workers and others. Let’s not make the path for a work permit, legal residence a long, expensive, bureaucratic labyrinth to those who are here and came like our ancestors to this country regardless of race or political affiliation. Let’s remember that history is the present. It is time for change.
The ’86 Immigration and Reform Act, the last significant immigration reform passed 40 years ago on a bipartisan basis; can happen again if the reluctant side has the courage to feel the hurt and pain in our community.
Finally, this is no longer a political or legal issue, it is a moral issue of decent global humanity.
Rolando Salgado Araujo reminds us that we must all carry the cross for justice. Let’s put our party’s political ideology on immigration enforcement on hold for a second and both Republican and Democrats let’s fight hate with love and join hand in hand and walk with our own daily personal cross for justice.
Dr. Sergio Lira is a lifetime Houston resident on the East End and President of Greater Houston LULAC 4967.