“Had my father seen an emblem of ICE, or an emblem that says anything about a law enforcement agency, my father would have complied; he would have stopped,” Salgado said. He went on to say that his father may have been worried that the people following him would try and steal the tools he needed for work.
According to Salgado, it seemed as though three other people were detained by federal officers after the shooting. Salgado said that one of those men was his uncle.
Araujo had been living in the U.S. for about 35 years and had been working to try to obtain legal status in the country, Salgado said.
“He did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of Mexican man shot and killed by ICE,” Salgado said. “He deserved to live a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a husband, a father, and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream.”
Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Texas, who joined Araujo’s family at the press conference on Wednesday, said that Araujo had no criminal record. She demanded a “full,” “transparent,” and “independent” investigation into the incident.