ICE Ramps Back Up, With Deadly Results

[00:00] I'm Paul Tenorio, I cover soccer for The Athletic. And I'm Amy Lawrence, I cover football for The Athletic. Whatever you call it, the biggest competition in the sport is happening right now. And The Athletic's World Cup coverage has everything you need to follow the tournament. We've got more than 70 obsessive reporters on the ground. If you're eager to know more about the teams, the matches, all the stories on and off the pitch, we've got you sorted. Throughout the tournament, you have free access to all the coverage in our app. Download The Athletic app and see you there. [00:31] From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. [00:42] Two fatal shootings by federal immigration agents in Texas and in Maine have once again put a spotlight on the Trump administration's deportation tactics. [00:53] Today, my colleague Hamed Aliaziz explains how these killings signal a return to a more aggressive form of immigration enforcement, one that can easily turn a routine moment like a traffic stop on. [01:05] into a deadly confrontation. [01:15] It's Thursday, July 16. [01:25] Hamed, in the six months since two Americans were killed by federal agents in Minnesota, the government's deportation crackdown has felt a little bit quieter. Federal agents, of course, withdrew from cities. The protests that we saw after Minnesota really died down. We stopped seeing these gruesome confrontations between law enforcement and civilians that people have been capturing on video.

[01:55] they almost came out of nowhere. [01:57] Yeah, I mean, I think that's a fair assessment as far as the public's view, because in the months after Minneapolis, arrest numbers dropped pretty dramatically across the country. But that kind of came to an end in late June when suddenly, at least at ICE, there was this sense that the White House wanted more arrests, that the enforcement, it needed to go up dramatically. [02:27] first. We are still learning the details of what happened both in Maine and in Houston, but can you just tell us, Hamed, what do we know so far about both of those incidents? Yes, the first shooting was on July 7th in Houston. And in that incident, ICE was looking for two individuals that they wanted to come and arrest. And as they're doing that surveillance, as they're looking for those two individuals, they come across a van to them that seemed [02:57] They believe an individual in the car resembled one of the targets that they were looking for. And so they start to look up the license plate information of this van, and they find that it's registered to somebody who is undocumented. And so they decide to go after the car. They're basically thinking, oh, even if it's not the people we're looking for, maybe we could pick up another person who's here illegally. Right. [03:22] Yeah, essentially, I mean, you're at a point now that you have created this level of reasonable suspicion that ICE officers need to pursue individuals.

[03:52] their officers in danger, that it was being weaponized, that the officers essentially feared for their safety and needed to use that lethal force. So that's at this point what we know, but we don't have a clear video of this incident. But we do know, of course, that they shot into the vehicle, killing this person in Houston. So what do we know about the victim at this point? [04:15] Yeah, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. He lived in the country for more than 30 years. He's undocumented. And he actually had a—his own construction crew. His brother was part of it. His brother was in the van. And this story took off for many reasons, but one of them was… I want to tell you about my dad. …really this impassioned speech from his son, Ronaldo. [04:41] He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people. [04:46] who just really spoke glowingly about his father [04:50] I saw a video posted on Facebook that he had been shot. [04:54] I recognized him immediately. [04:56] Thank you. [04:57] Not from his appearance. [04:59] But from his voice, [05:01] cry for help [05:02] as he lay on the street. [05:04] Bleeding out. [05:07] You could see in his tears how saddened he was about what had happened to him, and something that they never expected. He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of Mexican man shot and killed. [05:19] By ice. [05:20] He deserved to live a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

[05:24] a husband, a father, and a job creator for dozens of men who also [05:29] wanted the American dream. [05:32] So the story, I think, really resonated for people because when this administration talks about immigration enforcement, they often talk about and they highlight individuals who have horrific criminal convictions and the type of criminal histories that they really want to put on display. But in this case, this was a man going to work. [05:54] As we mentioned, there were two incidents. The second one was in Maine. Tell us about the details in that case. What do we know there? So on Monday in Biddeford, Maine, this really sleepy small town, ICE agents were targeting an individual who had a deportation order. And they decided to target somebody going into a vehicle and they decided to try to stop that vehicle. [06:24] And it was during this time they felt there was a fear. Actually, the way they put it was they were fearing for public safety. And the ICE officer decided to shoot into the vehicle. This man, Joanne Sebastian Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian immigrant, was killed. And just to be clear, do we know for certain whether he was or was not somebody that ICE was looking for? Yes. [06:51] They don't clearly say that in the statement. Senator Angus King said that he spoke with DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen, who told him that Mr. Guerrero was not the target of the ICE officers. So if that is the case, it is very similar in some ways to what happened in Houston. Can you tell us, what do we know about him, Guerrero the victim at this point? Mr. Guerrero, he lived in Biddeford.

[07:21] He worked as a food delivery driver. He was also a cleaner at a veterinary clinic. He has a three-year-old child, and his wife shared a photo of their family on social media, and she wrote that, I will love you all the days of my life. His father actually gave an interview with the Colombian news outlets, and in it he said [07:51] States legally. The Trump administration, though, said that Mr. Guerrero had illegally entered the country in 2023 and was released into the United States by the Biden administration. So we don't necessarily have clarity yet on his status. [08:08] It sounds like. We do not have any clarity on that, yeah. What has the public reaction been to these two cases that we've just talked about? [08:16] Yeah, I think there is a lot of anger. -Its not abuse it! -Now! -Its not abuse it! -Now! -Its not a man! -Now! -Its not a man! -Its not a man! -Its not a man! These agents have no business [08:28] drawing their guns [08:30] They aren't judge, jury, and executioner. He wasn't even the guy that they were looking for. And so now an innocent man is dead. People are asking for investigations. They're asking for accountability. We need the main attorney general to investigate. We're going to ask for a congressional hearing so that we can have... As I was making my way through Biddeford on Monday, [08:50] There was a pretty large protest outside of the office of Senator Susan Collins. Susan, follow the sports ice cream.

[08:59] The local residents had signs, anti-ice signs, surrounding that office just hours after that shooting. [09:10] And I think a lot of this stems from public distrust of ICE, of DHS, of this administration, and their narrative as to what happened. We've seen incidents before in which there is an explanation of what happened, and video comes out and ends up contradicting the facts presented by the government. [09:40] And the DHS secretary at the time, Christine Ohm, came out that same day and said that Mr. Preddy was planning to harm the agents, that he was brandishing his weapon. And Americans actually saw that video, and they saw that none of the things that she was saying were reflected in that video. So I think there is a lot of distrust of the official narrative. [10:05] I think there's probably a few things about these incidents that remind people of what happened back in Minneapolis back in January. And as you described, though, since then, the administration's tactics have at the very least become less visible. And so I wonder whether the events of the last week represent some kind of return to that earlier, more aggressive phase of enforcement, or whether the federal government has had more of a presence in American cities this entire time than people perhaps realized. Yeah.

[10:34] Yeah, I mean, if you go back to January in Minneapolis, it really comes at a time when Stephen Miller is pushing for more arrests, more deportations. He's put out this goal of 3,000 arrests a day, a figure that I was never able to reach. [11:04] after a series of stories about the Somali community there. That's right. So, [11:09] Thousands of DHS agents are there. They are trying to arrest as many people as possible. There are videos of people with legal status being pulled over. It seems like, you know, this is chaotic. Two American citizens are shot dead in the streets. And at the end of all this, President Trump decides to quiet down the situation in Minneapolis, and he [11:39] DHS agents leave the state. Then DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is ultimately fired, and in comes Mark Wayne Mullen, this senator from Oklahoma who, in his confirmation hearing, actually sets out this goal that he wants to keep his agency out of the headlines. He wants them to be quieter than

[12:09] You start seeing around 1,000 arrests a day. Right, which is probably why this felt a little bit less present to a lot of people. Exactly. I mean, it kind of in many ways was a situation in which ICE really tried to stay out of the public's view. [12:30] But even though it seems like, you know, things have quieted down, Stephen Miller has continued to push for more numbers. He has always wanted more arrests, more deportations. He never wanted to quiet things down. [12:44] Exactly. And by June, Miller and this administration is in a position to where they can get what they've always wanted. ¶¶ [12:57] We'll be right back. [13:00] you [13:04] you [13:08] Hi, I'm Ivan Penn. I'm an energy reporter for The New York Times. I think a lot of people take electricity for granted, but it's an essential piece of some of the biggest stories right now. The rise of artificial intelligence, the threat of climate change, and the real challenges that everyday people are facing with increasing electric bills. I spend my days talking to experts, sometimes traveling to really remote places, and investigating the role that energy plays in these huge issues. [13:38] of hundreds and hundreds of journalists at the Times, experts in what they cover, who carry the same level of commitment to their reporting. And that's the beauty of the New York Times. We're all working together to help you better understand and make sense of the world today. So if that sounds like something that connects with you, and you're not a subscriber yet, you can go to nytimes.com slash subscribe.

[14:05] Ahmed, what happened in June that, as you said, allowed Stephen Miller to once again pursue his deportation strategy as aggressively as he's been wanting to? [14:14] You know, well, we know that this administration has really been making this push to dramatically grow ICE for the last year. But June is really when we saw those efforts come to fruition. You'll remember that DHS was funded with an extra $170 billion by the Big Beautiful Bill. [14:44] But the process of getting them out on the street, that takes time. There's training. There's all kinds of different administrative tasks that are necessary. So by the time June rolled around, it was almost a year since that hiring push. And they're in a position now where they're able to, on their own, make this push for more enforcement, make it a reality. [15:08] They have thousands of new officers to send out into American streets. [15:14] To arrest people and ramp their numbers up. And in fact, in late June, there was this idea within ICE, this perception within ICE that 2,000 arrests a day, that that is the new goal. That that is the new, actually not even goal, expectation.

[15:44] But the expectation now is that 2,000 should be an achievable number. [15:50] Exactly. And in late June, in a period of five days, they arrested more than 10,000 people, averaging more than 2,000 arrests a day. And one DHS official told me that that was the highest five-day stretch of arrests by ICE during the Trump administration. I mean, this is really unprecedented territory we're in. 10,000 people picked up by this agency in just a five-day swing. [16:20] Is this just kind of a momentary enforcement blitz? But we've seen on several occasions after that five-day stretch, ICE again hitting that 2000 number. [16:31] you [16:34] You know, I think, Ahmed, for people listening to this and hearing how ICE has really grown its ranks, a natural question is, well, how well trained could these people be? And did training or a lack of training contribute to the end results that we saw today? [16:48] this past week. So what do we know about that? Yeah, you know, as the administration, as ICE was trying to push out these thousands of new officers, they really cut down on the days for these ICE officers to go through their training. And in fact, there was a whistleblower, an individual who was a former ICE lawyer, who came out and said that they had cut, you know, more than 200 hours

[17:18] involving firearms training, use of force, lawful arrests, the limit of their authority. And so that raised a lot of questions about exactly what these officers were being trained on and whether or not they were really capable of handling these really high-stress situations. And I think what's happening now is that as this agency and as the officers are being pushed to do more, [17:48] being pushed to get that number of 2,000 arrests a day. In fact, ICE has ordered their field offices to send out more officers every single day to ramp up operations. What that means is you're going to see more of these confrontations, more of these situations where ICE is in a, they have a sense of urgency to get as many arrests as possible. And what they're being met with in many cases is [18:18] who are incredibly fearful of what's going to happen to them, you know, they have seen the videos, they have seen the news of people being deported to Africa, to detention in El Salvador. And so that tension is very high. And so these officers are, in some cases, are running into situations where the immigrants themselves, they want to flee the situation.

[18:48] do not want to be arrested. They are terrified. And in many ways, it's a recipe for disaster. And on Tuesday morning, I reported on a case of a 28-year-old man who came across ICE at a gas station in St. Augustine, Florida, and he ran away from them. And he ran into the street and was struck and killed by a truck. These are the types of situations where we've seen this before in [19:18] people fleeing in panic to immigration enforcement and there being lethal consequences. And so this is the kind of recipe for disaster that can make a routine interaction, like a traffic stop, a really combustible situation like what we saw happen in Houston and Maine. The public outcry over those shootings has been mounting. And Hamed, I wonder what the reaction from the administration has been so far to the reaction that we've seen from the public. [19:45] Yeah, it's been really interesting to see the way they've made their argument. We saw the administration pause vehicle pursuits, vehicle stops, except for certain situations. And that seemed to be kind of this moment where the administration was taking a beat to evaluate what they were doing and then move forward. [20:15] not only was ICE doing a great job, but that they should continue to do the vehicle stops, that there was no pause. So you have a situation in which perhaps the agencies are looking at it one way, and the president has decided for them that they should continue with their aggressive approach. Right. I mean, just to read a couple lines from the president's true social post, he said, quote,

[20:41] We cannot give up on one of ISIS's most important and effective crime-fighting tools, the traffic stop. Once we do, we are playing right into the criminals' hands. He went on to say in the same post, keep those crime stat records coming. So I think it seems pretty clear that the president is walking back any kind of attempt to maybe moderate the tactics that we saw over the past week being deployed in Houston and in Maine. Yeah. [21:03] 100 percent. Both of these incidents right now, both of these shootings are currently under investigation. But [21:10] In the past, when civilians have been shot by federal law enforcement agents conducting these kinds of immigration crackdowns, we did not see indications from the administration that they were very eager to pursue thorough investigations. And I sort of wonder what we know about these investigations, whether they are being run any differently. And if you have any indication at this point, Hamed, when and what we may ultimately learn. [21:40] involve shooting, even at a local level, it takes a long period of time. A lot of resources go into figuring out what happened with the shooting, whether or not the officer was in the right. And case in point, we can look at the shootings of Alex Preddy and Rene Good in Minneapolis. You know, we are six months out from those shootings. We don't have any indication when those investigations [22:10] instance, like past instances, the DHS inspector general taking a long period of time to come up with their analysis and to finally decide what they concluded on these shootings. The FBI is also involved with the investigation, but is primarily just involved with the threat to the officer. So DHS IG is the one that is really directing this entire investigation.

[22:36] Hamed, if it is true that more violent interactions are basically all but inevitable, then [22:43] Do you think it's fair to assume that the president has basically decided that whatever the cost is of these stops, of reaching this quota, that that cost is ultimately worth it to execute the agenda that they have wanted to execute when it comes to deportations? [22:56] Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind is an interview that J.D. Vance gave recently in which he said that law enforcement and the work of law enforcement, it's not a very pretty process. And I think for this administration, the thing that I look at is actions. I think actions matter. And this administration, since these shootings, they have not relented in their push for more arrests. [23:26] more than 2,000 people a day. They paused car stops for, seems like, a matter of hours before President Trump stepped in and said they needed to continue. So I think it's fair to say at this point that this administration believes that the mass deportation campaign, it hovers above everything else, above the protests, above the calls for accountability, the calls to defund the [23:56] The goal is mass deportation and nothing is going to stand in that way.

[24:08] Hamed Ali Aziz, thank you so much. Thank you for your time. [24:17] The FBI is investigating whether there were drugs in the van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Ariuho at the time that immigration agents killed him in Houston. That's according to a search warrant application reviewed by The New York Times. [24:31] There has been no indication that agents pursuing the van that day suspected that drugs were present. [24:41] We'll be right back. [24:46] Here's what else you need to know today. To clarify, Mr. Blanche, do you believe it is the president's right and duty to order the investigation or prosecution of his perceived enemies? Yes or no? I can't answer that yes or no. [25:16] of Texas. — But just to be clear, the president of the United States has not agreed in writing to delete the weaponization fund, and there's no — — In what was widely seen as a revealing slip-up, Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, suggested that he still sees himself in that capacity. [25:34] Are you and President Trump friends? [25:37] I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer, and now I'm the deputy attorney general, so I met him. And, in a vote on Wednesday,

[25:48] Almost half of House Democrats supported a measure to eliminate U.S. aid to Israel. The measure ultimately failed, but the vote reflected a rapid and dramatic shift within the Democratic Party, away from decades of unequivocal support for the Jewish state. [26:12] Today's episode was produced by Adrian Hurst, Ricky Nowetsky, and Chris Benderev. [26:18] and contains music by Marian Lozano and Dan Powell. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Chris Wood. Special thanks to Zolan Cano-Youngs and Caitlin Ruthman. [26:42] That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow. [26:52] This podcast is supported by the American Petroleum Institute. Energy security affects how Americans live, work, travel, and stay connected. America has abundant oil and natural gas, but resources alone are not enough. The country needs modern infrastructure, like pipelines and transmission lines, that can affordably and safely bring energy to families, communities, and businesses. That's how to build a stronger, more reliable energy system for the future.

[27:22] framework.org.