How the shooting death of a Houston father is igniting Latino politics in Texas

HOUSTON — As the sun set on a late-September evening, a voice rose over the din of traffic at the roadside memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the 52-year-old husband and father fatally shot here by immigration authorities three months ago.

Sitting on barbershop steps, Berta Lopez, a nearby resident, alternately sang, recited prayers and cried for a man she never met.

“It was unjust — he was killed unjustly! The family is deeply hurt, his wife, his children. They are like family to us. And why don’t they show the people who did the killing? Why don’t they show them? Why don’t they release the names of the people who killed Lorenzo? Why don’t they expose them?” she said in Spanish.

In tears, Lopez said that after more than a year of intensive operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Salgado Araujo’s killing was a clarifying moment. The government, she said, saw those who weren’t U.S. citizens as less than nothing. She was tired of it.

“Just because we’re Hispanic, shouldn’t we hold our heads high? No, God doesn’t want us hanging our heads in shame. He wants all of us, his children, to hold our heads up high,” Lopez said.

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business