Another ICE killing – the Good the Bad and the Ugly
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo stands behind a birthday cake in an unknown location in this picture obtained from social media, released July 8, 2026. Photo by Ronaldo Salgado/via Reuters (Fair Use)
I have a problem with the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. I have a lot of questions. I need some empirical evidence to decide who’s telling the truth and who isn’t.
But there isn’t much evidence and we’re left with a few bare facts.
Salgado Araujo, who was shot by an ICE agent on July 7th was in the country illegally. That’s bad. Other than that, his criminal record was clean and that’s good. It appears he was trying to escape and that’s bad. But did he use his vehicle as a weapon? If so, that’s bad, but if ICE agents have no proof, that’s bad. If they shot him dead because he was trying to make a getaway, that’s ugly.
I voted for Trump three times, mostly on the issue of illegal immigration. I’m a hardliner. But we can do this better.
AUDIO: Random Samplings of a Logical Mind (TO COME)
The story of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo – the good.
So far, and from what I’ve read in news accounts, Salgado Araujo was a construction worker, whose hands were clean other than his status as undocumented. The AP story puts it this way:
Salgado Araujo was a 52-year-old homebuilder who was shot and killed as he was driving his crew to a construction site. His family said he had lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, had no criminal record and was close to finishing the long process of obtaining legal status when he was killed.
Just from these short two sentences, assuming they are accurate, we can glean several likely conclusions. As is the case with many illegals, especially those from Mexico, his life there had no future and he looked to the north as an escape. He had skills – carpentry and construction — and came to the United States to use those skills to better himself. The statement that he “was driving his crew” may mean that he was in charge of some of the workers — at what level is unknown at this point.
He had been in the United States for more than 35 years without incident, so none of his prior construction sites likely had been targeted by ICE or its predecessors, and he had never been charged with a crime. Thirty-five years is a significant amount of time, and we can conclude that he was a good worker and had do difficulty finding work. We might even go so far as to say that he was the kind of immigrant worker that we need in the country – IF we could have a more logical immigration system.
And note that he, by virtually all reports, was working through the system to get legal status and was close to it. One more thing about this man. No matter what else we learn about him. He was far from being the worst of the worst.
Video: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not the intended target in Houston ICE shooting, Rep. Sylvia Garcia says
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo – the bad.
There is no denying that he broke our immigration laws to get here. Every hour of every day of those 35 years, he was in the country illegally. I’ve already noted that I voted for President Trump three times and largely over the issue of illegal immigration. I despise it and I want it to end. I have always clamored for a system in which foreigners who wish to come here to work, to vacation, or to attain citizenship, should not only respect our laws, but also fear them. There should be pain for breaking our immigration laws, just as there is when other laws are broken – you know, the ones we actually enforce.
RELATED: Problems We Can’t Solve
Salgado Araujo obviously knew what the laws were, and he broke them of his own free will. If he was trying to escape from the ICE agents, then we have yet another situation where law enforcement orders were ignored. I think he saw his dream of being in the country legally and being able to move about without fear of deportation about to end. I think he wanted to escape to keep his dream alive of a better life in America. We can’t confirm that because he’s dead.
Mexico, ICE and Congress – the ugly.
Probably the greatest percentage of our illegal alien population comes from Mexico. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum will complain about the ICE shooting without ever a mention of fixing her hell-hole country. Maybe she’s trying to that, and stay alive at the same time. Until she can deal with the dug cartels, organized gangs, and a crappy standard of living, she has no status to object to what happens to her citizens after they sneak into our country.
Then there’s ICE and its promise to go after the worst of the worst.
Yes; Biden’s open borders let in plenty of them, and we were promised that the priority, the Prime Directive, would be to find them, arrest them, and deal with them harshly. The Biden administration has much blood on its hands, and ICE was charged with going after the cartel members, the human traffickers, the drug dealers, and the murderers. ICE has done that to a large extent with courts fighting them in many cases, but they also say they’ll round up any illegal that gets caught up in a raid.
Legally, they can do that, but it’s a departure from what we were all told would happen. The harshness of ICE has resulted in three prominent shooting deaths, including activists Rene Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. Those deaths are documented by video evidence, and the Right says both activists deserved what they got and the Left says the evidence is clear that they did not.
I take all human life seriously including that of unborn children, illegal aliens, and protesters.
I’d rather arrest them and deport them or try them as the situation calls for. I had trouble with the shooting of Renee Good. It didn’t seem necessary to me. I could be wrong. I also had trouble with the death of Ashli Babbitt on January 6 at the hands of a Capitol Police Officer. It didn’t seem necessary to me to kill her. The Right and the Left seems to disagree on that one too.
Now to Congress.
Our crap-weasel, do-nothing Congress could easily fix this immigration mess if the two parties weren’t so busy hating each other. It’s easy to make a logic chain. We need unskilled labor. Mexican workers are willing to come here to take those jobs. We need a system wherein they are vetted with extensive criminal and medical background checks. They then get green cards and can work in America without fear of deportation. If they work hard and stay clean, the green cards would renew. Female immigrants must not be able to give birth while working here and have citizenship for the child. We have to fix Birthright Citizenship. There should be a sensible path to citizenship for long-time workers who agree to learn English and assimilate. Assimilation is the key.
RELATED: We could have a functioning immigration system if we had a functioning Congress
None of that seems like too hard a task given the mess our immigration system is currently. That Congress refuses to do the right thing is ugly in the extreme. If we did immigration right, our borders would be secure, we’d have the workers we need, and people like Lorenzo Salgado Araujo would not be shot by federal agents.
That would be beautiful.
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter. Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us. Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoolley.
Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site. Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com
There’s no ICE In this book, but there is the PLANETARY GUARD.
