The brother of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the Mexican construction worker fatally shot by an ICE agent in Houston last week, has been ordered to appear before an immigration judge and is likely to be placed in removal proceedings, even as local prosecutors seek to keep him in the United States as a key witness in the shooting investigation.
Victor Salgado has been detained at the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe since July 7, the day his brother was killed during what Immigration and Customs Enforcement initially described as a "targeted enforcement" operation. ICE has since acknowledged Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not the person agents were seeking.
Houston immigration attorney Ruby Powers told The Houston Chronicle that Victor Salgado is expected to appear before an immigration judge within weeks. She said his case differs from a typical deportation proceeding because he and the two other passengers in the van are material witnesses in multiple investigations into whether the use of deadly force was justified.
"There are normal circumstances, and then there's what's going on here," Powers said. "In this situation, we are pursuing all possibilities that we can imagine to have a release as soon as possible."
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said his office has certified U visa requests for Victor Salgado and the two other men in the vehicle, Jose Trinidad Rojas and Daniel Tirado Pantoja. U visas are available to victims or witnesses whose cooperation may assist criminal investigations.
"We certified their U Visa requests determining that they are all three material witnesses to this case," Teare told CBS News. "That is one of the first steps in the process to force the federal government to keep them here for the pendency of this case."
Teare said the witnesses' accounts are critical to determining whether criminal charges are warranted and warned that deporting them while the investigation remains active would be highly unusual. "Time was absolutely of the essence," he said. "To think that any agency would try to speed up the deportation of three material witnesses is really crazy in our normal way of being prosecutors."
The witnesses dispute the Department of Homeland Security's account that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo attempted to run over ICE agents. Attorney Hugo Balderas Ibarra, who represents two of the men, told The Texas Tribune last week that they said no agent was ever standing in front of the van and agents fired from the side of the vehicle after emerging from unmarked SUVs.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia, whose district includes the shooting site, said the witnesses' testimony presents "a totally different story" from the federal government's account. She has also said ICE officials told her the agents involved were not wearing body cameras and that neither Lorenzo nor Victor Salgado had been the intended target of the operation.
The case has drawn scrutiny in both the United States and Mexico. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced earlier this week that her government would ask U.S. prosecutors to investigate the deaths of 17 Mexican citizens linked to ICE operations or detention since President Donald Trump returned to office, including Lorenzo Salgado Araujo's killing.
