(José Niño, Headline USA) Immigration and Customs Enforcement should cease to exist, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared Thursday, seizing on a lethal encounter in Texas to press one of the progressive left’s oldest demands, Just the News reported.
An agent shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, shortly before 7 a.m. on Tuesday as officers worked what the agency called a targeted enforcement operation in Houston’s East End. Salgado Araujo later died at a hospital. Within two days the mayor of a city 1,600 miles from Canal Street made the case his own, The Hill reported.
“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo called Houston home for 35 years. On Tuesday, an ICE agent shot and killed him. His family learned of his death from a video before anyone bothered to knock on their door,” Mamdani wrote on X/Twitter.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo called Houston home for 35 years. On Tuesday, an ICE agent shot and killed him. His family learned of his death from a video before anyone bothered to knock on their door.
New York City stands with the Salgado family in demanding a full, independent…
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) July 9, 2026
“New York City stands with the Salgado family in demanding a full, independent investigation and real accountability,” he added. “To the Salgado family and any immigrant family in this city living in fear: we grieve with you and we will continue to stand beside you in the pursuit of justice. Abolish ICE.”
The Trump administration describes a wholly different scene. A spokesperson for the agency said that, drawing on “information we are receiving,” Salgado Araujo drove into a federal vehicle, brushed off repeated commands and “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense.”
Holes have since opened in that narrative. County pathologists classified the manner of death a homicide and traced it to a gunshot wound of the torso. The Department of Homeland Security later conceded that agents never sought Salgado Araujo at all, explaining that a passenger resembled a wanted Guatemalan man. No agent on scene carried a body camera, a lapse DHS pinned on two government shutdowns. Three men taken into custody that morning told a lawyer the federal version simply did not happen.
Inspectors general, FBI agents in Houston and the Harris County district attorney all launched reviews, while members of Congress echoed the family’s call for scrutiny.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
