About 200 people packed a sweltering South Austin church Saturday evening to mourn Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Houston homebuilder fatally shot by a federal immigration officer. They heard local immigrants describe how detention and deportation have shaped their families.

Some carried white flowers into Wildflower Unitarian Universalist Church on East Oltorf Street. People used bilingual programs as fans while late arrivals stood along the walls.

After an opening prayer in English and Spanish, Sulma Franco, an immigrant from Guatemala, said families across Central Texas were living with the fear of arrest and separation.

“It’s impossible to say that we feel safe here in Texas, because they have the cruelest laws against immigrants,” Franco said through an interpreter.

Kayla Estevez said she fled her home country seeking safety for herself and her children. She said her daughter is buried in the U.S. and wondered whether immigration enforcement could keep her from visiting the grave.

“Will I still be able to take flowers to her?” Estevez asked through an interpreter. “Will I still be able to go to work and come back and hug my kids?”

Speakers at the vigil connected their experiences to the death of Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three who had lived in the U.S. for about 35 years. Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, was driving his brother and two other workers to a construction job Tuesday when an ICE officer shot him during a vehicle stop in Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood.

The Department of Homeland Security has said Salgado Araujo attempted to run over an officer, prompting the officer to fire in self-defense. The men in the van dispute that account, according to their attorney. DHS has acknowledged Salgado Araujo was not the person agents were seeking. Federal investigators and Harris County prosecutors are reviewing the shooting.

Leticia Juarez said she and her husband were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in June 2025 and taken away in separate vehicles. She suffered a severe panic attack on the way to an Austin detention center, she said, but officers didn’t call an ambulance.

“Today, I am alone here,” Juarez said in Spanish. “My husband was deported. My family was separated.”

Organizer Juany Torres said those fears can be harder to see in Texas when state and local law enforcement agencies cooperate with ICE.

“So we might not see these huge masses of ICE agents in our streets, but they’re around,” Torres said.

Lorianne Willett

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KUT News

A state law that took effect this year requires county sheriffs who operate jails to request agreements allowing their departments to enforce federal immigration law. New Austin police rules say officers who learn that someone in their custody has an ICE administrative warrant should contact ICE “when operationally feasible.”

Body and dash cam videos obtained by The Texas Newsroom have shown Texas Department of Public Safety special agents breaking state police rules by wearing face-concealing masks during an ICE operation. The investigative report demonstrates the quick and nearly invisible way the vast majority of people are detained and deported in Texas.

Torres said the vigil was intentionally held the same day as a Houston vigil hosted by Service Employees International Union Texas, where two of Salgado Araujo’s sons spoke. Although organizers left their logos off the Austin flyer, Torres credited AFSCME Local 1624, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Workers Defense, IBEW, the Texas AFL-CIO, the Austin Central Labor Council, Grassroots Leadership and the Austin Sanctuary Network with helping organize the vigil.

The program ended with the crowd answering “presente” as organizers read the names of people they said had died in ICE custody or during enforcement operations. Estevez put the evening’s message more simply: “We all deserve to get back home.”

Lorianne Willett

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