“Who Are the Assassins?” — Salgado Family and Hill Democrats Want Killer ICE Agents Publicly Named
As ICE agents gunned down two men in six days, a grieving Houston family and a growing bloc of House Democrats are asking the same question Republicans won't touch: who pulled the triggers?
WASHINGTON — Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was still breathing when the shooting stopped. His son watched the video after the fact — his father screaming, still moving, still fighting to live — hours before anyone in government would confirm he was dead.
“I have to, well, all the world has to know, who are the... assassins that killed my dad,” his son told Univision’s Lidia Terrazas this weekend, the family’s first extended interview since ICE agents shot Salgado Araujo during a Houston traffic stop. “Because if that would have happened to any... crime... they would have investigated who was the suspicious, right? But what we have heard is that the agents that were involved... they have moved them to another state.”
That demand — a name, a face, an agency willing to say who fired — is now colliding with a Capitol Hill that can’t agree on whether it’s even a fair question. Days later, ICE killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine.
Democrats push for subpoenas
Two ICE killings in less than a week — Salgado Araujo in Houston, and Guerrero in Maine — sent Democrats into the halls of the Capitol promising oversight muscle they don’t yet have the votes to use.
Sidney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) did not mince words when I asked her about the killings, framing the issue as an urgent need for federal accountability. "We’re talking about state-sanctioned murder, okay?" Kamlager-Dove said. "Why they have not stopped the folks that work at ICE, in ICE from killing citizens, neighbors, community members is beyond me. Obviously, full-blown, full-fledged investigation. I actually believe that at this point we should be charging these fools, we should be prosecuting these fools, and they should be going to jail. And we should be defunding all of ICE."
Rep. Johnny Olszewski, D-Md., called it “unconscionable that this is the world we’re living in today,” and pointed to a blockade: “we can’t get our Republican colleagues to even put in some common-sense reforms like body cameras so we know what the hell is going on.” He said Congress has “the power of a subpoena” and wants Oversight and Judiciary to use it.
Rep. Walkinshaw, D-Wash., went further, calling ICE “still recklessly terrorizing communities” and demanding “an independent fair investigation” into both shootings. Asked about the agents’ now-standard practice of masking during operations, he didn’t hedge: “There’s no reason for any law enforcement agency, federal, state, or local, to be masked as a matter of practice when they’re out in the community.” He added that the agents who shot Salgado Araujo “have not been identified yet publicly,” and said they should be.
Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., said she’s heard directly from local law enforcement who won’t work with ICE because “they are unprofessional and they are not trained enough.” Her ask of DHS Secretary was blunt: “If you stand by your story, Secretary Markwayne, if you stand by your story, then let us see all the documents. Period.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said she saw it coming the moment ICE funding was restored: “I would not be surprised if when ICE funding started up again, that we would start to see more civilian deaths at the hands of ICE. And that’s exactly what has happened.”
Republicans decline to engage
On the other side of the Capitol, there was no comparable urgency. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., hadn’t heard about the Maine shooting when I asked him about it hours after it happened. Told the details, his answer didn’t move: “Ice agents are here to protect this country and to get the illegals out. They need to be funded.” Pressed that agents are “shooting people down in their cars on American streets,” he repeated himself: “Ice agents are doing a job for the American people. They need to be funded. That’s your opinion.”
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., said he was “incredibly proud of our ICE officers” and suggested, without confirming any details, that the Maine shooting likely involved a breakdown between local and federal coordination — the same explanation he offered for a shooting in Minnesota.
The body they still can’t bury
For the Salgados, the politics are secondary to the wait. Days after the shooting, the family still doesn’t have Lorenzo’s body, his van, his tools, his phone, or his wallet back. “Todavía no pueden, no pueden,” his son said — still, they can’t, they still haven’t given us the body. What they do have is the video. And the question it raises will not go away.
The Salgado family wants a name. Congress wants a name. Migrant Insider is the only newsroom in Washington built to make sure that question gets asked at every hearing, every presser, every markup — until someone answers it. Subscribe to keep us there.
ICE must follow standard police procedures in the event of shootings. Otherwise they are a rogue organization.
I Googled the meaning of “salgado” and learned it can mean “too expensive … too high a price to pay”. ICE is salgado. And Lorenzo and Renee and Alex paid the highest price to the Miller/Trump regime.