federal agent

The builder got up every morning long before dawn, left home to pick up his construction crew and then headed out to work on yet another house somewhere across the sprawl of Houston.

Fourteen hours later, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo would return to the wife he’d met as a teenager in Mexico and the modest house he’d built for his family on the city’s east side.

It’s what he’d done for decades, according to Ronaldo Salgado, his oldest son. He said his father built hundreds of houses over 35 years, creating a life for his family and watching as his three sons headed off to college.

On Tuesday, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Salgado Araujo, 52, after he was pursued by federal agents driving unmarked vehicles while he was taking his crew to their latest job site. The shooting has outraged Houston leaders and renewed public scrutiny over ICE and Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Four Democratic members of Congress who represent the Houston area said at a vigil Saturday that they would push for an independent investigation into the shooting.

“We are never going to forget that his blood is on Donald Trump’s hands,” Rep. Christian Menefee said. “We are not at war. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not a casualty. He was a human being who was murdered by our government.”

ICE was looking for someone else

Federal agents were looking for someone else when they tried to stop Salgado Araujo’s white van, Garcia said, citing a briefing she received from ICE’s acting director. The Department of Homeland Security has said an ICE officer fired at the van in self-defense after Salgado Araujo, whom officials described as an “illegal alien,” rammed an ICE vehicle. They have provided no evidence.

After some previous shootings by federal immigration agents, Homeland Security authorities have given accounts that were contradicted by video evidence. No video showing the moment of the shooting this time has emerged, and the agents at the scene were not wearing body cameras.

The three men that Salgado Araujo was driving said he was shot through a passenger window and that the ICE officer who fired was not in front of the van or even in danger, a lawyer who has spoken with them said Friday.

His family has also disputed the account from ICE. They said lawyers, who were helping him apply for a work permit, had explained how he should behave if immigration agents stopped him. Salgado Araujo was close to obtaining legal status when he was killed, they said.

“He knew what to do,” Ronaldo Salgado told reporters this week. “He knew not to sign anything. He knew that the first phone call he should make should be either to myself or to my mom. So that way we can get the process started of getting him out.”

He believes his father may have been scared that he was being followed by unmarked vehicles, worried someone was planning to steal his van or his tools.

The shooting in the largely Latino neighborhood is at least the eighth death connected to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign.

A kind, present husband and father

Salgado Araujo entered the U.S. more than 30 years ago, settling in Houston with his wife where they raised their three children.

Education was a constant focus in the house, said Ronaldo Salgado, who is now a teacher. One of his brothers is an engineer. The other is in college studying engineering.

Several childhood friends of Salgado recalled that his father was kind and soft-spoken, always inquiring after a long workday about his wife’s day and how his sons’ friends were doing.

“We didn’t really see him until the end of the day when he came home to have dinner, but that just shows how much of a hard worker he was,” said neighbor Jessica Alanis Magdaleno. “Everything they have now is thanks to the dedication to that.”

Josué Flores, a friend of Ronaldo Salgado since their freshman year of high school, said he first saw Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at his son’s football game.

“I think it speaks volumes of the kind of person that he was,” Flores said, recalling how Salgado Araujo showed up for his son even after an arduous day of work.

Salgado Araujo’s wife, a relative said, is “inconsolable.”

“She is very upset … angry, sad, disoriented,” Jose Torres Ramon, a nephew who lives in Mexico, told the Associated Press in a Facebook message.

Ronald Salgado, his oldest son, said at the Saturday vigil that he hoped he was making his father proud.

“I’ll keep fighting for him,” he said.

His brother Lorenzo Salgado Jr. said the shooting of his father was “a hard moment to be an American.”

“Even though my government, my federal government took away my father, we the people will bring justice,” he said. “We the people are America.”

After coming home in the evening, Salgado Araujo liked to listen to music on the porch and pet the family dog. His family has described him as a simple man of routine.

“He did not deserve to die,” Ronaldo Salgado said. “He dedicated his life in the United States to giving his family the American dream.”

Sullivan writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Jack Brook in New Orleans, Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.

An upstate New York resident sued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for sending federal officers to his house with a warning over an email he sent to the agency’s one-time head.

David Streever, who is a U.S. citizen, was on a trip to Finland when two officers showed up to his Rochester home in June and presented his wife with a warning notice informing him that the email he sent months earlier was considered a threat, his attorneys said. Streever sent the email in January to Todd Lyons, then the acting director of ICE, after an immigration officer fatally shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good during an anti-ICE demonstration.

Streever’s email called Lyons “a monstrous human being” who “will never know peace.” In a lawsuit filed Monday in Washington, he said the agency violated his 1st Amendment rights.

Streever is one of at least two residents of upstate New York who was served with a federal warning in June in the wake of criticizing ICE online. The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is representing Streever, and said it filed the lawsuit because Streever’s right to free expression was violated.

“This is very clearly within the protection of the 1st Amendment,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the foundation. “It was in the context of political speech.”

Representatives for ICE previously declined to comment on the warning to Streever, citing an ongoing investigation, and the agency did not immediately comment Monday. The suit also names Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, whose office also did not immediately comment.

“ICE investigates all credible threats towards its employees and officers, including threats to the ICE Director,” the agency said in a statement last week.

The entirety of the three-paragraph email, which carried the subject line “What’s next,” and referenced a leader in Nazi Germany:

“You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America’s Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher.

“The way you are protecting the obvious execution in Minnesota, even as we see the videos, will lead to your downfall. Even Trump will turn on you before the end, and you will be a sad, despised man who eats himself alive with shame at your own pathetic weakness.

“You will never know peace. You will seek to lose yourself, to escape the burden of knowing the truth about yourself. But wherever you go, you will find yourself. You will torment yourself until your last day on Earth.”

Federal agents also attempted to confront Streever at a hotel in New York City when he returned from Finland, but they were turned away by hotel staff, Steinbaugh said.

Federal officials went to Streever’s house the same week that officials visited Paigelynne Gonyea, a poll worker, at a voting location during New York’s primaries to confront her about a social media post.

Gonyea believes the warning stemmed from writing “I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted,” in a post with a picture of Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who shot and killed Good. She posted it in January, after Ross had already been identified by the news media.

Lauren Bis, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, shared an image of a different social media post from Gonyea in which she said Gonyea shared Ross’ address. Part of that post was redacted.

Bis said in a statement in June that Gonyea “committed a federal crime by posting the address of an ICE law enforcement officer online” and “if you doxx our officers, we will investigate you, and you will be brought to justice.”

A representative for the New York Attorney General’s Office has said the office is aware of the two residents’ contact with federal agents. The representative has said the office has been reviewing the interaction between Gonyea and federal agents that took place at the polls.

Whittle writes for the Associated Press.

Federal prosecutors announced charges Tuesday against 15 people who are accused of impeding federal agents during the Trump administration’s massive immigration surge in Minnesota earlier this year.

The investigation targeted two “Minneapolis-based antifa groups” whose members were trained in “surveillance, operational planning and rapid mobilization against law enforcement,” Minnesota U.S. Atty. Daniel N. Rosen said at a press conference.

The charges come as the Trump administration has escalated its attacks on “antifa,” an umbrella term for a diffuse movement of militant left-wing activists, which President Trump has described as a domestic terror group.

Rosen said some of those arrested identified as “antifa” while deploying a range of tactics to disrupt the immigration crackdown, such as “stalking” federal agents and using blocks of ice to slow their convoys. He declined to say whether any federal agents were injured as a result of their actions.

“Whether or not they actually, at the end of the day, cause bodily harm is not the measure of whether or not they committed a serious federal crime,” Rosen told reporters.

Twelve people were arrested Tuesday, two remain at large and one is already in custody, Rosen added. The names and specific charges of those arrested were not immediately available.

The charges come months after the administration’s “Operation Metro Surge” brought thousands of federal agents to the Twin Cities, setting off mass protests and leading to the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens.

During the surge, convoys of agents in unmarked SUVs traveled through neighborhoods, at times banging down doors, waiting outside schools and demanding residents produce proof of citizenship.

Primarily organized through anonymous neighborhood messaging threads, a sprawling network of outraged Minnesotans quickly formed, with ordinary citizens and activists using whistles and car horns to call attention to the masked, heavily armed agents.

At the time, border czar Tom Homan indicated that federal authorities were probing “the organization and funding of the attacks on ICE.”

“They’ll be held accountable,” Homan said. “Justice is coming.”

Last September, Trump signed an order classifying antifa as a domestic terror organization and directing federal agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle” its affiliates and funders.

Democrats and several First Amendment groups have raised issue with the designation. While the federal government may designate foreign terror groups, there is no formal mechanism to apply the same label to domestic groups.

Trump has long invoked the term against a range of political opponents, including peaceful protesters without anarchist leanings.

Offenhartz writes for The Associated Press.

President Trump’s administration is suing four states over their refusal to issue undercover license plates to federal agents, the latest front in the wider struggle between the White House and Democratic-led states over the Republican president’s immigration crackdown.

The Department of Justice alleges in separate lawsuits announced Thursday that Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington state are imposing unconstitutional restrictions that it says impede law enforcement and threaten agents’ safety.

“By denying undercover license plates to DHS components, including ICE, while issuing them to their own state agencies, these governors are pursuing discriminatory and obstructionist policies against federal law enforcement,” said acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche in a statement.

“These actions undermine federal immigration enforcement, allow dangerous criminals to escape justice, and terrorize American communities,” Blanche added.

The Justice Department filed the suits on Wednesday in U.S. district courts in the respective states. The four state governments are accused of trying “to obstruct the Federal Government’s immigration enforcement efforts, even though control over immigration and the nation’s borders is an exclusive federal power.”

Additionally, the Justice Department argues in the suits that the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause bars state governments from regulating federal law enforcement.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who oversees her state’s plate program and is also a Democratic candidate for governor, said she’s confident her decisions will hold up in court.

“What ICE did in Maine and continues to do was terrorize our friends and neighbors,” Bellows said in an interview Thursday. “There are no secret police in a democracy and we will always stand up for our Mainers safety and freedom.”

A spokesperson for Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Joy Campbell said the state’s lawyers are “reviewing the complaint and will defend the RMV policy to the greatest extent possible.”

Officials in Washington and Oregon did not respond to a request for comment on the federal action.

Feds say agents are endangered when easily identified

The administration asserts that federal agents “frequently investigate and apprehend violent criminals, including cartel members, gang members, sex offenders, human traffickers, and other violent offenders” and says making those authorities easily identifiable subjects them to increased harassment and potential physical harm.

The lawsuit comes after a back-and-forth between the DOJ and some state officials. The administration previously sent state officials letters demanding they justify their policies.

Maine Atty. Gen. Aaron Frey answered the Justice Department last week, defending his state’s policy and disputing the DOJ’s contention that it has hampered federal enforcement actions.

“Rather, the program reflects a legitimate and constitutional policy choice by the SOS not to allow its resources to be commandeered by the federal government for use in civil immigration enforcement activities that have, in Maine and elsewhere, resulted in multiple incidents of abusive and unconstitutional conduct by DHS officials,” Frey wrote.

Bellows, in her role as secretary of state, announced a pause on confidential license plates in January, after federal authorities ramped up their immigration enforcement activities in the state. Bellows said at the time that the state wanted to be “assured that Maine plates will not be used for lawless purposes.”

The federal suit against Maine argues that the state “has issued confidential license plates to law enforcement agencies for many years” and that “such plates are explicitly authorized under Maine law.” The state’s review this year, the suit argues, resulted in unlawful state regulation of the federal government by requiring federal applicants for state license plates to attest that federal vehicles that obtained confidential plates would not be used for civil immigration enforcement. The suit also states that Maine did not impose commensurate requirements on state or local agencies applying for the plates, making the program discriminatory against the federal government.

Bellows has previously defended her decision.

“When ICE asked for confidential license plates, I said no” because “covert civil immigration enforcement is not something Maine will facilitate,” she said last week.

Arguments are similar to debate over agents’ masks

The Trump administration’s arguments on the license plates are similar to its defense of federal agents wearing masks on their deployments to American cities. That became a flashpoint in an extended government shutdown over Department of Homeland Security funding, as Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded key changes to how Trump’s mass deportation plans were carried out after masked federal agents killed two U.S. citizen protesters in Minnesota.

The White House and DHS have maintained the agency’s mask policy, and the administration already has won a federal court order blocking a California law that barred law enforcement officials from covering their faces in the state.

Additionally, the administration has been at odds with so-called sanctuary cities where local law enforcement does not assist federal authorities with immigration enforcement. And Blanche has instructed the Justice Department’s Civil Division to identify all state and local laws, policies, and practices that could impede what the administration describes as “lawful federal operations.”

Barrow and Whittle write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta. Whittle reported from Scarborough, Maine.

PORTSMOUTH, Va. — The FBI searched the Virginia state Senate leader’s office on Wednesday as part of a corruption investigation, a person familiar with the matter said. Federal agents also were seen at the senator’s nearby cannabis business.

The search at Virginia Sen. L. Louise Lucas’s district office in Portsmouth comes after the Democrat helped lead the state’s recent redistricting effort.

The FBI said only that it was conducting a court-authorized search warrant in Portsmouth. The person who confirmed the FBI’s search was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Besides the search at Lucas’ office, agents in FBI T-shirts also went into the nearby Cannabis Outlet, which she opened in 2021. Several entrances to its cannabis store parking lot were blocked by unmarked vehicles with flashing blue lights.

Lucas — a prominent backer of legalizing marijuana — has said the store sells legal hemp and CBD products. It has drawn scrutiny from local media amid allegations that some products were mislabeled.

Virginia has legalized pot possession, but retail sales of recreational marijuana remain illegal in the state.

A message seeking comment was left Wednesday on a cellphone for Lucas, who has been a state senator for 34 years.

State House Speaker Don Scott said he was deeply concerned by the FBI search.

“Right now, there is far more theatrics and speculation than actual information available to the public,” Scott, a Democrat, said in a statement, adding that more facts were needed “before anyone rushes to political conclusions.”

Gov. Abigail Spanberger declined to comment. Some other Virginia Democrats were quick to note that the search comes as the FBI and Justice Department have opened a spate of politically charged investigations into perceived adversaries of President Trump.

The context “must be acknowledged,” U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott said in a social media post.

Last week, the Justice Department charged former FBI Director James Comey with making a threatening Instagram post against Trump, an accusation that Comey — who for nearly a decade has drawn the president’s ire — has denied. A separate mortgage fraud case, ultimately dismissed by a court, targeted Democratic New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James, who had brought a major civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his business.

The FBI and Justice Department have also provoked concerns among Democrats about ongoing election-related investigations, including the seizure by agents of ballots and other information from Fulton County, Ga.

Lucas has been a vocal leader of Virginia’s redistricting effort, which voters approved last month. A sign urging people to “vote yes” to “stop the MAGA power grab” still hung Wednesday on a fence separating her office’s parking lot from the parking for the cannabis shop.

Amid a national, state-by-state partisan redistricting fight kicked off by Trump’s desire to aid his fellow Republicans, Virginia voters OK’d a Democrat-backed constitutional amendment authorizing new U.S. House districts. The plan could help the party win up to four additional seats.

“We are not going to let anyone tilt the system without a response,” Lucas said after the vote. Trump, meanwhile, denounced the results.

The state Supreme Court let the referendum proceed but has yet to rule whether the effort is legal. The court is considering an appeal of a lower-court judge’s ruling that the amendment is invalid because lawmakers violated procedural requirements.

Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.

Lucas, 82, has been a figure in Virginia politics since the 1980s, when she became the first Black woman elected to a City Council seat in her native Portsmouth. She now is the first woman and first African American to serve as the body’s president pro tempore.

Earlier in life, she was the Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s first female shipfitter, according to her biography in the state library. The job entails making, installing and repairing sometimes enormous metal assemblies for vessels.

In recent years, she has been the chief executive of a Portsmouth business that runs residences, day programs and transportation for intellectually disabled adults.

Tucker, Breed and Peltz write for the Associated Press. AP writers Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Ky.; Jake Offenhartz in New York; and Claudia Lauder in Philadelphia contributed to this report.