The Memo: Houston killing reignites controversy over Trump’s ICE enforcement

The killing of a man in Houston at the hands of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent has reignited the controversy over President Trump’s hardline policies, which critics contend are gratuitously aggressive and open the door to abuses.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, an unauthorized migrant from Mexico and a father of three U.S. citizens, was killed on Tuesday morning during an ICE traffic stop. 

The circumstances are hotly disputed. Some social media posts appear to show the aftermath of the encounter, but no video has yet emerged of the moment when Salgado Araujo was shot fatally in the abdomen. He died at a nearby hospital.

An ICE spokesperson told this column that Salgado Araujo “attempted to evade arrest” and added: “From information we are receiving, he rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.” 

The statement characterized the shooting as an act of self-defense on the agent’s part.

The three people who were with Salgado Araujo say that is just not true, according to an attorney who has communicated with them. One of those men, Jose Trinidad Rojas, called the authorities’ account a “lie” in a handwritten statement first reported by The Washington Post.

The attorney, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, told the Post that all three of the men said the agents were never in front of the van — something that would render implausible the idea that the ICE personnel believed they were about to be run over. Instead, “they came in and started shooting from the sides,” he said.

The death inevitably recalls two killings by federal agents in Minneapolis that roiled the nation and sparked massive protests: Renee Good was shot dead at the wheel of her car by an ICE agent on Jan. 7, and Alex Pretti was killed in the street by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers on Jan. 24. 

Both Good and Pretti were U.S. citizens who were........

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