Garcia: ICE acting director promised body cameras after Houston shooting

Family, passengers dispute ICE account of fatal shooting

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acting director has promised to equip all field officers with body cameras by the end of July, Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) said Monday, according to a Guardian column. The commitment came after the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, in Houston on July 7.

The shooting of Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old husband and father of three who had lived in the United States for 35 years, has intensified calls for transparency in ICE operations. The agency has not released body camera footage in the incident, and passengers in the vehicle dispute the government’s account that Salgado Araujo tried to run over an agent.

According to the Guardian column, ICE agents in unmarked vehicles stopped Salgado Araujo’s van while he was driving his construction crew to a job site. The agents were not wearing body cameras. The Department of Homeland Security said Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle and attempted to run over an agent, who fired in self-defense.

At least two passengers in the van dispute that account, telling attorneys that no agent stood in front of the vehicle and that shots were fired through the passenger side, the column reported. No footage has been released to corroborate either version.

Salgado Araujo’s son, Ronaldo Salgado, learned of his father’s death from social media and called his mother so she would not learn it the same way, the column said. The three men who were detained and interviewed separately gave consistent accounts, their attorney said.

The shooting is at least the 10th fatal encounter involving federal immigration officers since President Trump returned to office, according to a Guardian review cited in the column. Former acting ICE Director John Sandweg called the rise in shootings “a direct byproduct of the administration’s shift toward arrests on public streets.”

Days after Salgado Araujo’s death, an ICE officer fatally shot a 26-year-old Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine, the column noted. The facts of that shooting are still emerging.

Garcia’s announcement that the acting director had promised body cameras by the end of July follows a federal court order requiring ICE agents in Chicago to wear body cameras and state-level efforts to require agents to unmask and identify themselves, the column reported. Trump earlier this year signed a $70 billion immigration enforcement bill that did not require body cameras.

Hundreds gathered in Houston’s Magnolia Park on Saturday to mourn Salgado Araujo and demand accountability, the column said.