Houston shooting marks at least the 8th fatality in US immigration sweeps

The fatal shooting of a Houston man by a federal immigration officer Tuesday marks at least the eighth death during the Trump administration's immigration enforcement campaign, and the first fatality amid a newly intensified push by the administration to carry out its mass deportations agenda.

Department of Homeland Security officials said in a statement that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, ignored commands while trying to evade arrest during an enforcement operation. They say he attempted to ram his car into an agent, who opened fire in self-defense.

Araujo's family said he was on his way to work at a construction job. He died on the way to the hospital.

The fatal shooting drew immediate criticism from immigrants rights groups and some Democrats who called for an independent investigation and for all footage, communication and evidence to be preserved.

Video footage in several previous shootings has contradicted the accounts of federal officers. No immigration officers have been charged in those fatal encounters.

A fatal late-night traffic stop in Texas in March 2025 marked the earliest deadly shooting by federal officers during the nationwide immigration crackdown. It took almost a year for records in the fatal shooting of the 23-year-old U.S. citizen to be disclosed.

A Homeland Security Investigations team was conducting an immigration enforcement operation with local police when agents stopped Ruben Ray Martinez on his way from San Antonio to South Padre Island. Family members said he had just turned 23 and was with his best friend on his way to celebrate.

DHS officials said Martinez was told to exit the vehicle, refused and instead “intentionally ran over” an agent. Another agent fired shots through the open driver's window, striking Martinez, who died at a hospital. The HSI agent was treated for an undisclosed knee injury.

Martinez's mother said she was contacted by investigators with the Texas Rangers who told her there was video that contradicted the account given by federal agents. Federal and state authorities have declined to comment on potential discrepancies.

A Border Patrol officer shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, during a Jan. 24 protest against the Metro Surge immigration operation in Minneapolis.

Federal authorities immediately described Pretti, a U.S. citizen, as an armed agitator who was a threat to officers. But bystander video showed Pretti was on the ground and had been holding a cellphone during the interaction with officers.

The video showed an officer appearing to pull a gun from Pretti's waistband and step away before the first shot was fired by another officer, followed by more shots. Pretti had a permit to possess a firearm.

State and local officials pushed back against the federal officials' initial characterizations of Pretti, with Gov. Tim Walz calling the comments “despicable.”

Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, was repeatedly shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Videos show she was turning the wheels of her car away from officer, Jonathan Ross, when he opened fire. Trump administration officials have repeatedly defended Ross, claiming his life was at risk from the moving vehicle.

Good’s death caused a firestorm across the country. The U.S. Justice Department said it wouldn’t share information on the shooting with state authorities.

State and local officials subsequently sued to try to stop the immigration sweeps. Protesters with whistles trailed officers who, in response, deployed tear gas and other chemical irritants.

ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González during a traffic stop Sept. 12 in suburban Chicago. Relatives said the 38-year-old line cook from Mexico had dropped off a child at daycare that morning.

At the time, DHS officials said agents were pursuing a man with a history of reckless driving who was in the country illegally. They alleged Villegas González evaded arrest and dragged an officer with his vehicle.

Homeland Security said the officer opened fire fearing for his life and was hospitalized with “serious injuries.” However, local police videos showed the agent walking around and dismissing his injuries as “nothing major.”

DHS has said the death remains under investigation.

Authorities were arresting dozens of farmworkers July 10 at Glass House Farms in southern California when Jaime Alanis fell from the roof of a greenhouse and broke his neck. The 57-year-old laborer from Mexico died at a hospital two days later.

Relatives said Alanis had spent a decade working at the farm in Camarillo, about an hour east of Los Angeles. During the raid, Alanis called family to say he was hiding. Officials said he fell about 30 feet (9 meters) from the greenhouse roof.

Homeland Security said Alanis was never in custody and was not being chased by immigration authorities.

A man fleeing from immigration officers outside a Home Depot store in southern California died after being hit by an SUV as he tried to cross a freeway on Aug. 14.

Police in Monrovia, northeast of Los Angeles, said ICE agents were conducting enforcement operations when the man was hit while running across the eastbound lanes of Interstate 210.

The man, identified by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network as Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, 52, of Guatemala, died at a hospital.

Homeland Security said Montoya Valdez wasn’t being pursued by immigration authorities when he ran.

A pickup truck fatally struck Josué Castro Rivera on a highway in Norfolk, Virginia, as he tried to escape authorities during a traffic stop on Oct. 23.

Castro Rivera, 24, of Honduras, was heading to a gardening job with three passengers when ICE officers pulled over the vehicle, according to his brother, Henry Castro.

State and federal authorities said Castro Rivera ran away on foot and was hit by a pickup truck on Interstate 264.

Homeland Security said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and that Castro Rivera had “resisted heavily and fled.”

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Lauer reported from Philadelphia. AP reporters Ed White in Detroit; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed.

Ronaldo Salgado, son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, wipes away tears during a news conference Wednesday, July 8, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

FILE - A woman walks by posters of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during a solidarity bike ride for Pretti, Jan. 31, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

In this image made from video provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows law enforcement officials surround Ruben Ray Martinez after he was shot by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Jack Stevens and pulled from his vehicle at a roadblock in South Padre Island, Texas, on March 15, 2025. (Miguel Leal/Texas Department of Public Safety via AP)

FILE - Activist and farm worker Xochitl Nunez, right, holds up a picture of late farm worker Jaime Alanis as she joins farmworkers, immigrant leaders, labor allies and organizers to announce a national, "Farmworker Strike for Dignity," during a news conference at La Placita Olvera in Los Angeles, July 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

FILE - People gather during a vigil for 37-year-old Alex Pretti, who was fatally shot by a U.S. Border Patrol officer earlier in the day, Jan. 24, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Former Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan was spared from prison Wednesday for ushering a Mexican defendant through her jury room door as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sought to arrest him in a courthouse hallway.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman fined her $5,000, describing the case as a situation where an otherwise good person, upset by immigration policies in this country, made a bad decision in the moment.

Dugan, 67, was convicted of felony obstruction in December. Her lawyers argued during her trial that President Donald Trump’s administration sought to “crush” Dugan in an effort to ensure judicial compliance with the ICE strategy of targeting immigrants as they showed up for court hearings.

Dugan resigned the Milwaukee County circuit judgeship she had held for nine years in January amid threats of impeachment from Republican state lawmakers who labeled her an activist judge. In her resignation letter, she said her prosecution threatened "the independence of our judiciary." Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a fierce Trump loyalist running for Wisconsin governor, had urged authorities to “lock her up.”

Two Marquette University law professors — a former state Supreme Court justice and a Jesuit priest — spoke on her behalf, describing Dugan as a defender of oppressed people who doesn't deserve punishment. “Hannah models what it means to be a Christian,” said the priest, Gregory O'Meara.

Dugan addressed the court, saying she tried to do her best as a judge, and that her actions that day in April 2025 were not done maliciously but rather to maintain the “decorum and safety of the courtroom.”

"I have been cast as both a scofflaw and a hero. I am neither. I am a public servant who's just trying to do my job,” Dugan said, adding that she has had to retire from public life due to threats against her and her family.

Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Frohling acknowledged that Dugan has experienced collateral consequences but said “judges can't choose to disregard the law.”

The judge said Dugan lost her job, now has a felony conviction and experienced threats that forced her to move and stop attending community events. He also noted that Dugan’s actions didn’t stop the ICE agents from arresting the defendant outside the courthouse.

“This conviction affirms that no one is above the law,” Adelman said.

Prosecutors had argued in a sentencing memo that Dugan violated her oath as a judge and put both law enforcement and the public at risk.

“Judges are entrusted with tremendous discretion, but there is a line they cannot cross,” Frohling wrote. “The defendant crossed that line.”

Dugan’s attorneys argued she has been “punished enough,” and should not be sentenced to any jail time beyond the hours she spent in federal custody.

Federal sentencing guidelines called for 15 to 21 months behind bars, but the judge, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997, wasn't bound by them. Prosecutors did not recommend a sentence, but Frohling wrote that "this was a serious offense, and it warrants a correspondingly serious sentence.”

Attorney Jason Luczak said after the sentencing that they would still appeal Dugan’s felony obstruction conviction. Jurors acquitted her at trial of concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor.

On April 18, 2025, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and directed them to the chief judge's office, saying their administrative warrant wasn’t sufficient to arrest Flores-Ruiz. Her attorneys said during her trial that she was following protocols that called for court employees to report any immigration agents to their supervisors.

After the agents left, she led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. A week later, FBI agents arrested Dugan in the courthouse, leading her outside in handcuffs.

Flores-Ruiz was deported in November.

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Associated Press contributors include Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa. Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin.

FILE - Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan leaves the federal courthouse after a hearing in Milwaukee on May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Manis, File)