An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Tuesday fatally shot a man in Houston early Tuesday after he allegedly tried to run over the agent, according to the federal agency.
Federal agents were conducting a vehicle stop as part of a targeted enforcement operation just before 7 a.m. when Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who ICE identified as an unlawful immigrant from Mexico, attempted to evade arrest, according to an ICE statement.
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He then allegedly attempted to ram an ICE vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands and tried to run over the ICE agent, the statement said. ICE said the agent fired his weapon in self-defense.
The Houston Fire Department said in a statement that its responders were dispatched to the shooting at 6:51 a.m. and found the man with a gunshot wound to his abdomen.
He was transported to Ben Taub Hospital with CPR in progress, the department said. He died at the hospital, according to ICE.
FBI Houston spokesperson Connor Hagan said the office is leading an investigation into the potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General is leading an investigation into the fatal shooting of the man, according to Hagan.
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, said the man’s family and her constituents “deserve a complete and transparent accounting” of the fatal shooting.
“ICE has released an initial account, but the facts must be independently and thoroughly investigated, including the circumstances that led to the use of deadly force,” she said in a post on X. “All available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation.”
The shooting comes as federal immigration agents have come under scrutiny for a series of fatal shootings of American citizens in the past year and a half.
On March 15, 2025, an ICE agent helping local police route traffic around an accident shot and killed 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island, where the San Antonio resident was celebrating his birthday with friends. ICE’s involvement in the shooting only became public knowledge after watchdog group American Oversight received documents as part of a public records request.
In January, immigration agents fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good and 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration agents, said agents shot both Martinez and Good after they purposely tried to run over ICE agents. But video footage in both incidents don’t show Martinez or Good attempting to run over the agents.
In Pretti’s killing, video footage showed Border Patrol agents had already restrained the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs nurse, who was armed with a handgun holstered on his hip, before two Border Patrol agents shot him 10 times.
Prosecutors have not criminally charged any of the ICE agents in connection to those three shootings.
But in May, Minnesota prosecutors charged Christian Castro, a 52-year-old ICE officer who was arrested in Texas, with five counts, including second-degree assault and filing a false police report, in connection with the wounding of a man during an immigration operation in that state. The felony charges against Castro stem from a Jan. 14 incident in which ICE and Border Patrol agents pursued undocumented immigrants as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.