Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who fatally shot Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston this week were searching for someone else when they pulled over his vehicle, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Thursday.
According to DHS, officers had been acting on “a credible tip” from law enforcement partners and were conducting surveillance near a target’s address. “Weeks prior to the incident, they noted two white vans at the property,” the department said. “On July 7, officers were almost at the target’s address when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target. Officers then initiated the vehicle stop.”
The clarification marked a shift from DHS’s initial statement Tuesday, when the department said ICE officers had targeted Salgado Araujo because he was in the United States without legal permission. Officials alleged he was shot after failing to follow “multiple verbal commands” and trying to ram an officer, who then fired in self-defense. Houston firefighters said Salgado Araujo was hit in the abdomen before his vehicle struck an ICE vehicle.
Salgado Araujo was transported to a hospital, where he later died from his injuries, DHS said.
Family members and a Texas congresswoman said Wednesday that Salgado Araujo, who had lived in the U.S. for decades, was driving a work crew to a homebuilding site when he was killed. His son said his father had been trying to secure legal status after many years without it. The shooting has since prompted national attention and calls for a thorough investigation.
His family has said Salgado Araujo had no criminal record and was close to receiving a work permit after more than 30 years living in the country without legal status.
Federal authorities have not released any video, photographs or other images showing the shooting or the reported damage to the vehicles involved.
A DHS spokesperson said the ICE officer who fired the fatal shot was not wearing a body camera because officers in that field office had not yet been issued them.
The officers in Houston “had not been issued body-worn cameras due to back-to-back Democrat shutdowns,” the spokesperson said, blaming a series of government funding lapses that arose when Congress failed to pass measures to fund department and agency operations. There was a 43-day government shutdown in late 2025, as well as a separate 76-day DHS shutdown that started in February and ended in April. The spokesperson said that the shutdown interrupted the body camera procurement process for ICE field offices.
The spokesperson went on to say that half the field offices are now equipped with body cameras, and the other half are expected to receive them in the next 60 days.
The DHS spokesperson said in Thursday’s statement that providing ICE officers with body cameras is a priority, particularly because “our officers are facing a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them,” adding that the restoration of “historic funding” would provide ICE with necessary resources, “including body cameras.”
The Harris County District Attorney’s office said it would conduct an investigation into the shooting. The office is consulting with local prosecutors in Minneapolis, where federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, to learn how they have navigated investigations into federal immigration agents, spokesperson Rafael Lemaitre said.
Three men, including Salgado Araujo’s brother, were detained by ICE during the fatal traffic stop, according to Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, who has been communicating with their families.
LULAC has yet to obtain video footage that clearly shows what happened during the moments of the shooting and has offered a reward of $5,000 for information from witnesses, Proaño told AP. The position of Salgado Araujo’s van and ICE vehicles has obstructed security camera footage LULAC has reviewed, he added.
“It’s going to make it even more difficult to find the truth in all this,” he said.
Nicole Sganga
contributed to this report.
