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Al Green Calls Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s Killing an “Extrajudicial Execution”

At a shadow Homeland Security hearing, Green accused ICE of profiling and hunting Lorenzo, denounced a federal cover-up, demanded cameras on officers, and pledged impeachment action against Trump.

Representative Al Green used a shadow Homeland Security Committee hearing to place Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s killing inside a wider immigration-enforcement system built around profiling, pursuit, and deadly force. He called it an “extrajudicial execution,” accused ICE of profiling and hunting a Latino father under a quota-driven system, and said the Trump administration is hiding the truth while expanding an enforcement campaign aimed at entire communities.

Green began with Lorenzo’s humanity. He described him as a good man, a family man, and a Latino man whose presence in a white van made him a target. In Green’s account, Lorenzo was not encountered by chance. He was profiled, pursued through a Latino neighborhood, and treated as “the prey of the day” because immigration officers were operating under pressure to produce arrests.

“He was being hunted,” Green said. “He was the prey of the day. He was a part of a quota that had to be met.”

That accusation identifies the mechanism Green says placed Lorenzo in danger: federal immigration enforcement turned people into numbers, enforcement quotas created targets, and racial profiling decided who would be pursued. Lorenzo’s life was reduced to a possible arrest inside an enforcement system Green says was built to count bodies rather than protect them.

Green said the pursuit ended without trial, due process, or any chance for Lorenzo to defend himself. He did not soften the killing into bureaucratic language or describe it as a tragic outcome of routine enforcement.

“Unfortunately, this ended with an extrajudicial execution,” Green said. “He was not given a fair trial. There was no due process.”

That language matters because it rejects the idea that ICE can treat Lorenzo’s death as an isolated operational incident. Green placed responsibility on the ICE system he said profiled Lorenzo, pursued him, and killed him without any court process or opportunity to defend himself.

Green then widened his indictment beyond Lorenzo’s case. He accused President Donald Trump of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” through immigration policies targeting Latino and Haitian communities.

Green described the administration’s immigration policy as an effort to erase Latino people from public life by treating them as unlawful by default and forcing entire communities to live under the threat of detention, pursuit, and removal. He pointed to Haitians being deported to a country where gangs control much of the territory as part of the same forced-displacement system.

Green also accused the federal government of covering up immigration-enforcement killings by delaying answers and withholding accountability. He pointed to the public’s continued lack of clarity in other deadly cases and said there was no justification for forcing families and communities to wait while federal agencies controlled the evidence, delayed answers, and shaped the public account.

“There’s a cover-up,” Green said.

For Lorenzo’s family, federal secrecy extends the harm beyond the killing by forcing them to fight for basic answers about how and why ICE killed him. They lost a father, then entered a system where the federal institutions responsible for the operation control what information becomes public, when it is released, and how the officer’s conduct is described.

Green said that silence must produce a political consequence. He pledged to pursue impeachment against Trump because he said the administration’s conduct had crossed from policy failure into constitutional abuse.

“The time has come for the record to be made,” Green said. “We cannot allow this kind of behavior to go unchecked.”

His impeachment pledge was not separate from Lorenzo’s death. Green tied it directly to the profiling, pursuit, killing, secrecy, and broader targeting he described. Green presented impeachment as the necessary response when the executive branch uses federal power against communities and then conceals the consequences.

Green demanded body cameras and dashboard cameras for immigration-enforcement vehicles. When he asked whether unmarked cars should carry cameras, the district attorney agreed and added that marked units should conduct traffic stops.

Without mandatory cameras and clearly marked vehicles, ICE can pursue people through neighborhoods, use deadly force, and leave families dependent on the agency’s own account.

Body cameras would record officers’ actions and crucial parts of the encounter. Dashboard cameras would document the pursuit, the position of vehicles, the conduct of officers, and the sequence leading to force. Marked units would make enforcement activity visible instead of allowing armed federal agents to move through communities without clear identification.

Green’s demands recognize that transparency cannot begin after someone is killed. It has to be built into the operation before officers make contact, initiate pursuit, or draw a weapon.

His speech also refused to let Lorenzo disappear beneath institutional language. Lorenzo remained a father, a family man, and a person whose life ended inside an enforcement system Green says selected him as prey.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s family is still owed the full truth about why he was pursued, who authorized the operation, what records exist, and why deadly force was used. Green’s speech makes clear that those answers cannot remain buried inside the same institutions responsible for the enforcement operation.

ICE killed Lorenzo. His family should not have to fight the government for the record of how it happened.


ICE killed Lorenzo, then left his family fighting for the records, evidence, and answers that should have followed the killing.

Upgrade to a paid subscription to help Americans Against ICE identify the officers involved, name the officials responsible, document the enforcement policies that made Lorenzo a target, and expose the federal agencies withholding the public record.

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