The killing of a Mexican man living in the United States by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent during a traffic stop in Houston has become the latest fatal encounter as the Trump administration continues its mass deportation campaign.
The man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, was killed while on his way to work. In recent weeks, President Trump has renewed the deportation effort, which had slowed in the spring.
“He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,” said Ronaldo Salgado, one of Mr. Araujo’s sons. “That’s how I want the world to know my father — not as someone who got shot and killed, but as a family man, a man who understood that good things come to those who put in hard work.”
Here’s what we know.
ICE agents were searching for a different person.
Details of the interaction between Mr. Araujo and immigration agents were still murky on Thursday.
The federal authorities initially said that ICE agents stopped a vehicle around 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday and tried to arrest Mr. Araujo, whom they described as an “illegal alien.” They said he “weaponized his vehicle” and tried to run over an agent, who then fired at him.
Mr. Araujo suffered a gunshot to his abdomen and was taken to a hospital, where he died hours later, according to the Houston Fire Department.
But on Thursday, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration agents, said that Mr. Araujo was not the intended target of the operation. Federal officers had been looking for a Guatemalan man who they believed was in the passenger’s seat of a white van being driven by Mr. Araujo.
The authorities did not provide video footage of the encounter.
At the time of the stop, Mr. Araujo was on his way to work at a construction site with three others, including his brother. Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, Mr. Araujo’s younger brother, remains detained at an immigration detention center in Conroe, Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s office is investigating. The F.B.I.’s Houston office is also investigating, but its inquiry will focus on the accusations that Mr. Araujo assaulted a federal officer.
Mr. Araujo’s family members and civil rights activists have called for an independent investigation and have asked the public for any new images or videos of the encounter.
Some videos on social media in recent days appear to show immigration agents hovering over a man holding his abdominal area. Other images showed another man on the ground with his hands behind his back as someone screamed in pain.
Mr. Salgado said he had seen a video in which he heard his father cry in agony moments after he was injured.
“I learned of my father’s passing from a news report on social media, not the hospital, not law enforcement,” Mr. Salgado said. “He did not deserve to die.”
Mr. Araujo lived in the United States for 35 years.
Mr. Araujo, 52, was a husband, father of three children and a business owner who had been in the country for more than three decades and was trying to obtain legal residency.
His sons said their father, a Mexico native, was most likely months away from obtaining a work permit after submitting fingerprints to immigration officials.
Mr. Araujo’s family said that he had followed his normal morning routine on the day he was killed. He got up at the crack of dawn, brushed his teeth, drank coffee and picked up his workers to head to a construction site. In evenings at the home he built, he would typically sit by the porch with his dog after eating the dinner his wife had made.
Ronaldo Salgado, 29, and his younger brother Lorenzo Salgado Jr., 27, described their father as a humble, hard-working man who had achieved his dream of running his own construction crew.
At least 21 people have been fired on by federal agents since last year.
The Trump administration has recently revamped its goals to detain and deport immigrants after its efforts temporarily stalled in the spring when Kristi Noem resigned as homeland security secretary.
Ms. Noem stepped down after a tumultuous year of leading immigration operations in left-leaning cities, several fatal shootings of immigrants and U.S. citizens during operations and protesters’ challenging of detentions.
Since last year, federal agents have fired on at least 21 people, many of whom were shot in their vehicles. Five people, including three U.S. citizens, were killed as a result.
Federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in January during a weekslong immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis. One of those citizens, Renee Good, was killed in her vehicle, while the other, Alex Pretti, was kneeling and restrained in the street.
In February, revelations emerged that ICE agents had shot and killed a third U.S. citizen, Ruben Ray Martinez, in March 2025 during a traffic stop in Texas. And Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant, was killed in Chicago in October after officers fired at his vehicle as he drove away.
In many of these shootings, immigration agents have accused drivers of trying to assault a federal officer with their vehicles. Many people fighting those allegations in court have prevailed.
Federal immigration agents detained more than 10,000 people in a five-day period entering July after a push from the White House.
Markwayne Mullin, the new homeland security secretary, pledged to mount a quieter enforcement campaign after the chaos of the immigration operation in Minnesota.
Edgar Sandoval, Hamed Aleaziz and Allison McCann contributed reporting.
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