Federal Judge Blocks ICE from Deporting Witness in Fatal Shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
Activists are demanding justice with continued protests and a federal judge just blocked ICE from deporting a witness in their fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas.
Resistance continues unabated even as the Trump administration has cracked down on First Amendment rights in an attempt to silence dissent.
BLOCKED FROM DEPORTING WITNESS
A federal judge blocked ICE from deporting a witness in their fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, which begs the question: What kind of legitimate law enforcement agency would be trying to deport witnesses that could corroborate their claims?
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A federal judge blocked ICE from deporting one of the three passengers in the van Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was driving when he was fatally shot by ICE.
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to not deport a witness in the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by a federal immigration agent earlier this month in Houston.
U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison issued the directive on Monday after an attorney for Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, a passenger in Salgado Araujo’s van during the shooting, filed a petition seeking his release from immigration detention.
The order also said Rojas Pliego cannot be transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility outside of the Southern District of Texas while the petition is pending without the court’s permission.
One issue with ICE being enabled by the Trump administration to conduct itself lawlessly is the agency’s primary enforcement goal of expedited deportation directly conflicts with preserving crucial witness testimony, and in fact they are incentivized to get rid of witnesses and evidence (as seen in Minneapolis).
According to DHS, Salgado Araujo was not even the intended target of the operation. They claim Salgado Araujo attempted to run over ICE agents with his van, and the agent fired in self-defense, but they have repeatedly made this claim and video evidence has proven their assertions to be inaccurate.
However, witnesses in the van, one of whom ICE was trying to deport, say ICE rammed their van with two different vehicles (one from the side and one from behind) before firing at them. In statements, they say he never threatened ICE agents, contradicting DHS’s assertions of events.
“At no moment were the agents in front of the vehicle,” Daniel Tirado Pantoja, a rear passenger in the van, said in his hand-written statement in Spanish. “Lorenzo (Salgado Araujo) had come to a full stop while the agents fired.”
TRUMP FIRST AMENDMENT ASSAULTS
The Trump DOJ’s efforts to silence dissent include a recent case over a July 4th demonstration at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, during which a police officer was shot.
A former US Marine Corps reservist was convicted of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer. But the administration went off the deep end having identified “anti-fa” as a terrorist organization when experts have said it lacks any membership list, leader or structure. It is simply a name for fighting fascism, which is probably why Trump hates it.
This finding then allowed them to use that to lock up protesters for 30 years simply for moving a box of anti-fascist literature, and another who was not present at the protest but received a 30-year term for allowing a protester into her home.
This is the same administration that handed out pardons for January 6th cop abusers for an attack that led to the death of several officers.
The 30-to-100-year prison terms handed down to the Texas anti-ICE protesters are vastly more severe than sentences given in any other recent U.S. civil unrest cases. Legal analysts, civil rights groups, and former prosecutors have highlighted that these penalties far exceed standard sentencing guidelines for comparable acts of protest violence or rioting.
This was an unprecedented case prosecuted out of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas, with statements regarding the convictions coming from former Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and officials from the FBI.
HOUSTON ACTIVISTS CONTINUE PRESSURE
