The day after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston's East End, his son spoke about his father's dedication to his family and said he did not deserve to die.
"He was a hard-working family man who never wanted his name to be known by anyone outside of his family," Ronaldo Salgado said at a news conference Wednesday morning. "He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people."
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said an agent shot Araujo at approximately 6:50 a.m. Tuesday during a "targeted enforcement operation.” According to DHS, Araujo was from Mexico and did not have legal status in the U.S.
Federal officials claimed Araujo attempted to evade arrest and tried to run over an ICE agent with his vehicle, prompting the agent to shoot Araujo in self-defense, DHS said.
In light of other fatal shootings by ICE officers during the second term of President Donald Trump, whose administration has ramped-up enforcement of immigration laws, local elected officials and civil rights groups have called for independent investigations into the shooting of Araujo.
So has his family.
"You [could] find him every evening after work, resting on his porch, listening to music, petting his dog," Salgado said. "I am deeply heartbroken to see that the man who taught me the value of hard work, family values, and education will no longer spend an evening on that porch. … He did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE.'"
Araujo had lived in the United States for over 30 years and was working his way through the process of obtaining legal immigration status, according to his family.
"He dedicated his life in the United States to giving his family the American dream," Salgado said. "After nearly 35 years of working to give us the American dream, he made the choice to begin the process of obtaining his American dream through a work permit. We dotted every I, crossed every T, filled every document, attended every appointment."
U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, along with half a dozen other elected state and local leaders, joined Araujo's family on Wednesday.
"I want to be clear, somebody being killed by law enforcement is a big g—— deal," Menefee said. "What other profession has the power to take somebody's life in the middle of a street? ... We are a city of undocumented immigrants. They are our neighbors. They are our family. They are business owners, and they deserve to be treated with humanity and with dignity."
On Tuesday, the FBI said the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security is leading an investigation into the shooting, while the FBI’s Houston office is leading an investigation into the "potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer."
RELATED: Mayor Whitmire: No Houston police involvement in fatal ICE shooting
Speaking Wednesday, Salgado said three other men were in the vehicle with his father when the shooting occurred.
"All three men were rounded up," Salgado said. "I have not heard from them, but I hope that they are able to provide their own statements to prove that my father feared for his life as unmarked cars followed my dad, who only wanted to get back to work and back to us."
ICE had not identified the three other men as of Wednesday afternoon, and the federal agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment about them.
Salgado said his father helped him and his two brothers afford college, adding that Araujo's hard work inspired them.
"My father was a simple man, a family man," Salgado said. "That's how I want the world to know my father. Not as someone who got shot and killed, but as a family man, a man who understood that good things come to those who put in hard work."
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