United States Representative and Democratic candidate for U.S. House in Texas's 20th district.
Case
ICE says an officer shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in self-defense after he used his van as a weapon. Passenger witnesses dispute the claimed threat, and a Harris County grand jury is reviewing the shooting.
Case
HSI agent Jack Stevens fatally shot U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez on South Padre Island in March 2025, saying Martinez's car struck a fellow agent. A grand jury declined to indict him, but body-camera footage shows the car moving very slowly, leaving the shooting disputed.
Role at the time: U.S. representative speaking on the House floor
Statement summary
Castro named Martinez among people he said ICE had murdered.
“Let us remember the names of those whom ICE has murdered. The first one was a San Antonian, Ruben Ray Martinez. There was another Texan, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo of Houston. Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero—these folks were victims of the ICE murders.”
Calling the death a murder is an explicit condemnation of the use of deadly force.
Role at the time: U.S. representative for Texas’s 20th congressional district
Response to this claim
The ICE officer fired in self-defense after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo attempted to run over an officer with his van.
“The more evidence that comes out, the clearer it becomes that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was murdered in cold blood by agents of the United States government.”
The fixed reference point is the fatal shooting. Castro’s description of it as murder in cold blood is an explicit rejection of the claim that the force was justified.
Statement dates: July 24, 2026 to September 1, 2026
Statement dates: July 24, 2026 to September 1, 2026
Statement dates: July 24, 2026 to September 1, 2026
Statement dates: September 1, 2026
