Congress must rescind ICE's funding, launch independent investigations into these killings, hold everyone who aided and abetted them accountable, and mandate that ICE agents wear visible identification instead of masks. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old builder with no criminal history who had lived here 35 years, was shot dead in Houston on July 7 when ICE agents mistook his van for a target vehicle. Less than a week later, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero — a 26-year-old authorized to work in the US with a social security number — was shot and killed in Maine. DHS confirmed to Senator Angus King that he was not the target either. His wife and young daughter watched him die.
These are not isolated failures. Federal immigration officials have carried out 11 fatal shootings since January, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Lauren Bonds of the National Police Accountability Project called the Maine shooting an "extrajudicial public execution." That is exactly what it was. A temporary pause on vehicle stops and vague promises of "training improvements" are not accountability.
This agency is constitutionally rotten and no change in leadership has fixed it. Defunding ICE, mandating full transparency and identification for all agents, and conducting genuine independent investigations are the only acceptable responses. Anything less is complicity.
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