A week after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a July 7 traffic stop in Houston, Salgado Araujo’s family and Harris County officials are raising concerns about the federal investigation after the Trump administration announced its decision to search for drugs in the van Salgado was driving.
Although the Department of Homeland Security did not initially cite a suspicion of drugs as a reason for the encounter that ultimately took the life of the 52-year-old father of three, the FBI applied on July 14 for a warrant to search his van for “controlled substances” in Houston federal court. The original focus of the FBI’s investigation was the “potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer.”
The affidavit, signed by a federal judge on Tuesday, stated that FBI agents observed several plastic bags containing a “white crystal-like substance” on the dashboard and passenger floorboard of the van and asserted that the agents had probable cause to investigate for “possession with intent to distribute controlled substances.”
The substance was a homemade electrolyte powder the family used to stay hydrated while working outside on hot Texas days, according to Ruby Powers, a Houston-based immigration attorney who represents Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, Lorenzo’s younger brother, who was detained by ICE after witnessing agents shoot his brother at close range. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a homebuilder, was driving himself, his brother, Daniel Tirado Pantoja and Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego to a construction site in Houston when he was pursued by ICE agents.
“After consulting with my client and his family, our understanding is that this was granulated salt, which is paired with lemon and water as a homemade electrolyte mix used by outdoor workers in extreme Texas heat, not methamphetamine or any other illicit substance,” Powers told MS NOW.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, who is pushing for access to all evidence so his office can conduct its own investigation into the shooting, told MS NOW that the FBI’s suspicion that drugs were in the van is “inconsistent” with what he has learned from the van’s passengers.
The Trump administration’s push to investigate for illicit substances does not “change the fact that deadly force was used against Lorenzo,” Powers said. “You cannot shoot first and ask questions later.”
Across the mounting number of violent incidents involving federal immigration agents since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the DHS has often said the agents who fired their weapons did so in self-defense.
That was true in the days that followed Salgado Araujo’s death, when DHS stated without evidence that he had “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense.”
“I think this is becoming a modus operandi,” Powers said. “I think that this can be a tactic used to discredit those who are seeking justice.”
Unlike other shootings, fatal and otherwise, involving federal agents, which have sparked nationwide protests, Salgado Araujo’s case has so far seen no body-worn camera footage of the actual shooting. In the absence of such video evidence, Houston-area officials and the attorneys representing his family and the van’s passengers have pointed to the administration’s recent track record of misrepresenting the events that led to previous shootings.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired by Trump in March, had pledged to deploy body cameras across ICE field offices after the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but that goal has yet to be realized despite $20 million for the initiative in the latest DHS funding bill.
The delay has led to questions from critics about why the agency at the center of multiple use-of-force controversies continues to operate without the technology, which would bolster accountability. Trump administration officials have said that lack of body cameras is due to the government shutdown earlier this year.
When Marimar Martinez was shot five times by a Customs and Border Protection agent in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago last fall, the federal government initially claimed she had attempted to run over the immigration agent with her vehicle. Video evidence that circulated after the incident, however, contradicted the government’s account of events, and the Justice Department ultimately dismissed with prejudice the assault charges it brought against her.
Immediately after federal immigration agents fatally shot Good in Minneapolis, DHS accused the 37-year-old of participating in “domestic terrorism” and “weaponizing” her SUV to ram ICE agents during an immigration enforcement operation. Video evidence later contradicted that narrative.
In another instance last year, Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a TikTok creator who goes by Richard LA on social media, was shot during what DHS called a “targeted enforcement traffic stop.” Parias was arrested, but a judge dismissed the federal indictment against him, which alleged that he rammed agents with his vehicle, after the federal government failed to meet a court deadline to release body camera footage of the incident.
According to an MS NOW review of court records and media reports, federal agents — some working for ICE and others for Border Patrol, a part of CBP — have shot at people in their cars at least 17 times since July. Eight people have died in encounters with federal immigration authorities since the Trump administration began its widespread crackdown last summer, according to The Associated Press. In response to the outrage over recent deaths, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin posted on social media Wednesday to say “attempting to evade arrest is dangerous.”
The FBI executed the warrant on Salgado Araujo’s van in Houston on Wednesday “in connection with possible narcotics trafficking and drug offenses,” according to Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas. Reitz’s account of the pursuit that led to Salgado Araujo’s shooting and death stated that federal officers were looking for two Guatemalan men who were subject to deportation, with no mention of a suspicion of drugs. Salgado Araujo was a Mexican national.
Reitz tried to assure the public that his office is “doing everything we can to seek the truth,” but others have noted that the Trump administration’s aggressive law enforcement tactics have already damaged public trust in the justice system.
“We are not able to hold violent criminals accountable as well because of the tactics of ICE,” Teare said. “We have sexual assaults of children that I can’t prosecute because the outcry witness is too scared to participate. We have aggravated robbery victims who will not come forward and call the police because of their status, allowing people out there to prey on victims without any repercussions.”
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