The second Trump administration has seen a significant escalation in fatal encounters with US federal immigration officials, with ten people reportedly shot and killed nationwide. The latest incident involves 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was fatally shot by officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a “targeted enforcement operation” early on Tuesday morning. Mr Salgado was on his way to a construction site with three co-workers, who were subsequently arrested.
Details surrounding Mr Salgado’s death remain contested. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has claimed he “weaponised” his vehicle when ICE officers attempted to stop and arrest the men. However, Mr Salgado’s family, public officials, and civil rights organisations have strongly disputed these claims, calling for an independent investigation into the shooting. Ronaldo Salgado, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s son, stated at a press conference, “He did not deserve to die.”
This marks the tenth fatal shooting by federal immigration officials, including both ICE officers and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, since the current Trump administration took office, according to a review of public reports by The Guardian. These incidents have not exclusively occurred during immigration enforcement operations; one case involved CBP agents shooting a man who fired at a border patrol station, and another saw an off-duty ICE officer kill a man in California.
The increasing number of deaths has drawn international condemnation. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed alarm over the rising fatalities in US government immigration custody. A report released last month by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights calculated that 52 people died in ICE custody within the first 500 days of the second Trump administration. Critics now contend that the administration’s aggressive “mass deportation” campaign is directly contributing to a heightened risk of violence and death.
Jesse Franzblau, associate director of policy with the National Immigrant Justice Center, commented on the situation, stating, “The deaths of people in immigration prisons have reached new terrifying levels – 21 people have died in ICE detention this year alone, and now we are learning of yet another shooting death by an immigration agent on the streets of another US neighbourhood.” He also highlighted the substantial funding allocated to ICE and CBP, with £55.2 billion (USD 70 billion) alone in a bill passed last month, without, he argues, sufficient accountability for the violence.
Several high-profile shootings in the past year include the deaths of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, killed by federal immigration enforcement officials during an immigration enforcement surge. In at least four of the immigration-related shooting deaths, including Mr Salgado’s, victims were driving vehicles when they were shot. Law enforcement officials are typically trained to move out of a vehicle’s path rather than firing at a moving car. The Wall Street Journal identified over a dozen incidents of federal immigration officials firing at individuals in vehicles between July 2025 and January 2026. In a separate case from March 2025, an ICE agent fatally shot 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez, also a US citizen, during a traffic incident, a detail that emerged almost a year later, prompting scrutiny from congressional Democrats.