WASHINGTON — The fatal shootings of two immigrant men whom federal authorities say were not the intended targets have intensified scrutiny of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with critics arguing the deaths reveal an agency conducting increasingly aggressive civil immigration operations without adequate oversight, training or accountability.
An opinion piece published Tuesday in USA Today argues that while ICE was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a counterterrorism agency, it now conducts door-to-door civil immigration operations without a clear mission, sufficient oversight or adequate training.
The article opens with a stark assertion, arguing that the ICE agents who fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on July 7, 2026, were not originally looking for him.
The Department of Homeland Security claims its agents had spent an extensive period tracking a different address after receiving a tip about two white vans parked there. On the day of the fatal incident, agents were surveilling the area where the white vans had been seen when they noticed that the driver of one of the vans “resembled the target.”
The man in the driver’s seat was Salgado Araujo, a Mexican father of three American citizens. He had no criminal record or relationship to the investigation other than an unfortunate resemblance and had worked in the United States for decades. USA Today states that “within minutes [of interacting with him], an agent shot him.”
Even though an uproar followed the fatal shooting, DHS declined to say who agents were originally looking for, whether that person was found or whether the van Salgado Araujo was driving was the vehicle in question.
The agency had supposedly spent weeks carefully preparing for the operation. However, the incident resulted in Salgado Araujo’s death, and DHS has refused to explain what actually occurred.
One week after the shooting, America witnessed a similar incident when an ICE agent in Biddeford, Maine, shot and killed 25-year-old Colombian immigrant Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero as he was driving to work.
Once again, the victim was authorized to work in the United States. Once again, DHS claimed he was not the intended target. And once again, there is no body camera footage to confirm what happened.
The DHS response to the two incidents was not to reevaluate its practices but to publish two press releases before any evidence had been filed, “each using the same description: a ‘weaponized’ vehicle,” the article states.
While DHS’ purpose in using such language may have been to place some blame on the victims, photos of vehicle damage posted online by witnesses show bullet holes and body damage that the article says were consistent with violent contact involving ICE vehicles rather than the other way around.
It took two killings for ICE to order agents to pause most vehicle stops across the nation. This came after the agency itself suggested that it “cannot yet run this operation safely.” Tom Homan, a former ICE agent appointed by President Donald Trump to oversee and coordinate federal immigration enforcement, called the pause a “short-term review,” USA Today reports.
Furthermore, Homan said he spent 35 years in law enforcement, retired as a commander, investigated high-level shootings and taught use of force.
He said it is with that experience that he believes “what happened in Houston and in Biddeford is the predictable output of a federal agency that lacks the training, the oversight and the settled mission of a real law enforcement organization.”
A New York Times article found that immigration agents have shot at at least 23 people since January 2025, resulting in six deaths, half of whom were U.S. citizens. According to USA Today, nearly every fatal case has involved officers firing at people in vehicles.
In Minneapolis alone, two people have been killed, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and one person, Julio Sosa-Celis, was shot in the leg after agents fired on him and was “later criminally charged after a medical exam refuted his sworn account.”
Now, two men have been killed six days apart, more than 1,000 miles from one another, both of whom were not the intended targets. USA Today states that “when the script exists before the evidence does, the process is corrupt.”
Later in the piece, USA Today argues that the patterns seen in ICE operations do not reflect traditional law enforcement practices but instead mirror “a militia with a badge.”
The article further contends that these practices are spreading to other federal agencies, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been pulled away from their primary responsibilities and redirected to immigration enforcement operations nationwide.
Officers who were originally associated with other federal agencies are now tied to the reputation ICE is continuing to build. The lack of local pushback has grown to the point that Houston police released a statement saying “there was nothing [they] could do.”
On the other hand, Minneapolis criminally charged federal agents, claiming they were abusing their jurisdiction by interfering in the community.
This overreach reflects the limits of the Supremacy Clause, which establishes the balance of power between the federal and local governments, the article states. The piece concludes by reminding readers to “believe your eyes, not federal press releases” and that, ultimately, “silence is authorization.”
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