ICE kills

 

San Franciscans gathered Saturday outside the Tesla dealership on Van Ness Avenue.

The national movement follows two recent, horrific killings by ICE agents. On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a beloved father and worker, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston, Texas, while driving a work van. On July 13, ICE agents killed 26-year-old Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, in front of his partner and toddler. There have now been 53 deaths in ICE custody since Trump was inaugurated, 33 deaths in fiscal year 2026 alone. 

ICE agents were not even looking for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

Salgado Araujo, 52, was killed during a traffic stop by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, prompting thousands of Houstonians to take to the street in protest and to demand justice. 

Salgado Araujo was a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the US for more than 30  years without legal status, according to his family. He was not the intended target of the ICE operation that resulted in his killing. 

... Democratic Congressman Christian Menefee said ICE needs to be “torn down to the studs” and rebuilt as an agency that recognises the “dignity of the people that it encounters”. 

“But we all know that that will not happen under this administration,” he added.

Johan Sebastian Guerrero, shot in Maine, again was not an intended ICE target. 

Investigators have not released details of the shooting in Biddeford. But a spokesman for Senator Angus King said this week that the senator had been told by senior officials that Mr. Guerrero was not the intended target of the immigration operation. Mr. Guerrero was in his car just after 7 a.m., as he headed to work.

Benjamin Gideon, a lawyer representing the Guerrero family, said at the news conference that Mr. Guerrero had been working in the United States lawfully. “The Trump administration issued him a permit to work in this country legally,” he said. “And they issued him a Social Security card and a Social Security number.”

“Do we accept the idea that innocent, loving partners and loving and devoted fathers of 3-year-olds can be collateral damage to this government’s policies?” Mr. Gideon asked. “Do we agree that this is just an acceptable cost of doing business?”

Passing motorists on busy Van Ness Avenue honked enthusiastically. The Tesla dealership is a regular weekly protest site and drivers know what to do. 

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Later in the day, members of Indivisible hosted a more contemplative memorial for ICE's victims at Sue Bierman Park, gathering around an improvised altar.