Protest ICE Execution of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo!

In Houston on July 7, ICE agents gunned down 52-year-old Mexican immigrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo as he was driving with three passengers to a construction job. ICE thugs in unmarked vehicles surrounded Araujo’s van and opened fire from the sides. As usual ICE lied afterward, claiming the victim had “weaponized his vehicle” to run an agent over. And as usual videos and eyewitnesses exposed the feds’ lies. Later ICE said they had mistaken Araujo for another immigrant targeted for deportation who also drove a white van.

The next evening, on July 8, over 1000 turned out to protest this cold-blooded killing. A host of Democratic Party politicians glommed onto the July 8 protest, calling not to stop the deportations but for an independent investigation someday down the road. Their aim is to channel anger over the shooting into the mid-term elections. ICE predictably has stonewalled, refusing to name the agents who shot Araujo, and saying the agents were not wearing body cameras. From Newark to Minneapolis to L.A., the Democrats have shown they will not stop ICE. They mouth words against ICE while flooding the street with cops to round up protesters and let ICE carry out its dirty work.

The ICE killings just keep coming. We remember Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Keith Porter Jr., Ruben Ray Martinez, and dozens of others who have died at ICE’s hands, in and out of custody. We demand immediate release of all records on all ICE shootings to the public! Opening the files to expose ICE’s crimes is an elementary act of self-defense for immigrants and working people, black and brown.

To stop ICE and the deportations what’s needed is a mass mobilization of the ranks of labor at the head of immigrants and the oppressed. The Houston area has thousands of unionized longshoremen and oil refinery workers, overwhelmingly black and Latino. And there are countless other workers there who need to be organized. These workers have every interest in coming out against the racist ICE thugs. Attacks on immigrants divide the working class and will be used as a battering ram against the unions. Any drive to organize the unorganized in the “Open Shop” South will be met by the bosses’ dogs of war—from the cops to the Klan to ICE. The unions taking the lead of anti-ICE protest today would be an important act of labor/black/Latino self-defense.

The Partisan Defense Committee has donated to the fund set up to help Araujo’s family with funeral and legal costs, and his widow’s needs. We urge you to do the same: https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-loving-memory-of-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-52-years-old. Justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo! Stop the Deportations!