Lawmakers called for an investigation of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a field hearing in Houston on Friday that featured Salgado Araujo’s two sons among the key witnesses. Two sons of a man shot by immigration officers in Houston this month testified at a congressional hearing Friday, describing the horror and confusion of learning their father had been killed, and demanding a transparent investigation into how he died…
The sons' voices often choked with emotion as they described their father as a humble and hardworking family man. He had lived without legal status in the U.S. for 35 years, ran a homebuilding business and had never been in trouble with the law.“He didn’t need anybody to know his name,” Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Jr.
told the hearing, held by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “He worked hard to protect and provide for our family, to put me and my siblings through college. He taught us that good things come to those that work hard.”The Department of Homeland Security said shortly after the shooting that Salgado Araujo had rammed his van into the immigration vehicles chasing him, then “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer,” and that the officer fired in self-defense.
The officers were not wearing body cameras.Passengers in Salgado Araujo’s van describe a different version of eventsAt least two of the passengers in the van have disputed the government's account, saying the officers crashed into the van and were safely on the sides of the vehicle, never in danger of being struck, when the officer fired. All three passengers in the van were arrested and remain in immigration detention. One of them is Salgado Araujo’s brother, Victor, whose account of the killing is not public because his petition for release is sealed.Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare told the hearing that DHS, which oversees ICE, has ignored his requests for information and evidence, including the name of the officer who fired the fatal shot.Nevertheless, he said, his office was making “significant progress.” He declined to discuss specific evidence or speculate on when his office’s investigation would end.Salgado Araujo’s sons said their father would have never run fro…
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