Over the last week, two men were fatally shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during immigration enforcement operations – but neither appear to have been the direct targets of those operations, according to a source and Maine Sen. Angus King.
Last Tuesday, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed in Houston by an ICE agent while he was on his way to work, but he wasn’t the target of the immigration operation, according to a source with preliminary details about the incident. ICE hasn’t specified if he was a target of the operation.
Texas authorities previously notified ICE about two individuals — neither of whom was Salgado Araujo — traveling in a white van believed to be in the United States without legal status, according to the source, prompting them to surveil the vehicle.
Officials surveilled the target’s address for weeks, where two white vans were seen at the property, a Homeland Security official told CNN. As officers were on their way to the target’s address on July 7, they saw a white van with a person who resembled the target, the official said. The van was registered to Salgado Araujo, who agents determined to be in the country illegally, the source said. This is what led to Tuesday’s confrontation.
While many details of Monday’s shooting in Maine aren’t known, Maine Sen. Angus King said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the man was “NOT the target of the warrant,” according to the senator’s office.
King had told reporters earlier in the day the man fatally shot by agents was the target of a warrant, citing a conversation with Mullin. CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for more information on the shooting, which is yet to release information on what happened Monday.
