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The builder got up every morning long before dawn, left home to pick up his construction crew and then headed out to work on yet another house somewhere across the sprawl of Houston.
Fourteen hours later, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo would return to the wife he’d met as a teenager in Mexico and the modest house he’d built for his family on the city’s east side.
It’s what he’d done for decades, according to Ronaldo Salgado, his oldest son. He said his father built hundreds of houses over ۳۵ years, creating a life for his family and watching as his three sons headed off to college.
A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fatally shot Salgado Araujo, ۵۲, on Tuesday after he was pursued by federal agents driving unmarked vehicles while he was taking his crew to their latest job site. The shooting has outraged Houston leaders and renewed public scrutiny over ICE and Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Four Democratic members of Congress who represent the Houston area said at a vigil on Saturday that they would push for an independent investigation into the shooting.
“We are never going to forget that his blood is on Donald Trump’s hands,” Christian Menefee, a US representative, said. “We are not at war. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not a casualty. He was a human being who was murdered by our government.”
Federal agents were looking for someone else when they tried to stop Salgado Araujo’s white van, Democratic congresswoman Sylvia Garcia said, citing a briefing she received from ICE’s acting director. The Department of Homeland Security has said an ICE officer fired at the van in self-defense after Salgado Araujo, who officials described as an “illegal alien”, rammed an ICE vehicle. They have provided no evidence.
The three men that Salgado Araujo was driving said he was shot through a passenger window – and that the ICE officer who fired was not in front of the van or even in danger, a lawyer who has spoken with them said on Friday.
His family has also disputed the account from ICE. They said lawyers, who were helping him apply for a work permit, had explained how he should behave if immigration agents stopped him. Salgado Araujo was close to obtaining legal status when he was killed, they said.
“He knew what to do,” Ronaldo Salgado told reporters. “He knew not to sign anything. He knew that the first phone call he should make should be either to myself or to my mom. So that way we can get the process started of getting him out.”
He believes his father may have been scared that he was being followed by unmarked vehicles, worried someone was planning to steal his van or his tools.
Salgado Araujo’s death marks the ۱۰th fatal shooting by federal immigration officials in the US since the second Trump administration took office, a review of public reports by the Guardian shows.
Salgado Araujo entered the US more than ۳۰ years ago, settling in Houston with his wife where they raised their three children.
Education was a constant focus in the house, said Ronaldo Salgado, who is now a teacher. One of his brothers is an engineer, and the other is in college studying engineering.
Several childhood friends of Salgado recalled that his father was kind and soft-spoken, always inquiring about his wife’s day and how his sons’ friends were doing after a long day at work.
“We didn’t really see him until the end of the day when he came home to have dinner, but that just shows how much of a hard worker he was,” said Jessica Alanis Magdaleno, a neighbor. “Everything they have now is thanks to the dedication to that.”
Josué Flores, a friend of Ronaldo Salgado since their first year of high school, said he first saw Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at his son’s football game.
“I think it speaks volumes of the kind of person that he was,” Flores said, recalling how Salgado Araujo showed up for his son even after an arduous day of work.
Salgado Araujo’s wife, a relative said, is “inconsolable”.
“She is very upset … angry, sad, disoriented,” Jose Torres Ramon, a nephew who lives in Mexico, told the Associated Press in a Facebook message.
Ronaldo Salgado said at the Saturday vigil that he hoped he was making his father proud.
“I’ll keep fighting for him,” he said.
His brother Lorenzo Salgado Jr said the shooting of his father was “a hard moment to be an American”.
“Even though my government, my federal government took away my father, we the people will bring justice,” he said. “We the people are America.”
After coming home in the evening, Salgado Araujo liked to listen to music on the porch and spend time with the family dog. His family has described him as a simple man of routine.
Ronaldo Salgado added: “He dedicated his life in the United States to giving his family the American dream.”
Guardian staff contributed reporting
