Why does the US want to ‘dismantle’ the international criminal court? | Kenneth Roth

“With the pointless war of choice in Iran going poorly, the Trump administration has declared a virtual war on the international criminal court (ICC). Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, vowed on Monday to “dismantle” the court as a supposed threat to US sovereignty. His rationale is laced with sophistry. The administration’s real goal is to secure impunity for war crimes, even those committed on the territory of ICC member states.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed and a video posted on X, Rubio conjures up a dystopia in which local American officials such as police officers or border patrol agents “could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America”.

This is utter fiction. The ICC has no jurisdiction over crimes committed in the United States. Unless Donald Trump were to start deploying police officers or border patrol agents abroad, the ICC would have no capacity to charge or prosecute them.

Nor can the US government claim not to have consented to the laws applied by the court. They are drawn from treaties such as the genocide convention and the Geneva conventions and protocols that the US government has either ratified or incorporated into its military manuals. Is it really un-American to outlaw genocide?

While Rubio complains that the US government cannot “control” international law, no one should be able to. Law is meant to bind people, not be controlled by them. Although Trump has said “I don’t need international law,” that is a vision no decent leader should embrace.

Ironically, Rubio attacked international law just as he was invoking it. He said it was illegal for Iran to charge fees for ships passing through the strait of Hormuz (as Trump was briefly threatening to do precisely that). That sums up the Trump administration’s view of international law – to be weaponized when convenient and ignored when applied to its own conduct.

Rubio describes the court as “run” by “hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S.”. That would surprise, say, the governments of Europe, virtually all of which are among the ICC’s 125 members. The most abusive governments tend to avoid signing up because their officials would then become subject to prosecution. Their domestic atrocities can be reached only by resolution of the UN security council, where the US government has a veto.

Behind its overblown rhetoric, the Trump administration’s real objection is to the court’s power to prosecute war crimes and other mass atrocities committed on the territory of its member states when the perpetrator is a national of a non-member state. Trump wants to be able to commit war crimes anywhere in the world with impunity.

Rubio talked breathlessly about the ICC threatening American sovereignty, as if the Trump administration has a sovereign right to commit war crimes. But what about the sovereignty of other nations that seek protection against crimes committed on their territory by joining the ICC? Recognizing their sovereign right is apparently inconsistent with Trump’s might-makes-rightworldview.

Trump is not alone in this selective conception of sovereignty. At the ICC’s founding in 1998, Bill Clinton’s administration voted against territorial jurisdiction – and lost overwhelmingly, by a vote of 120 to seven. Yet when territorial jurisdiction was used in March 2023 to charge Russian president Vladimir Putin for kidnapping Ukrainian children, the US government changed its mind. Russia had never joined the court, but Ukraine had, so the ICC had jurisdiction because the children were kidnapped from Ukrainian territory. Suddenly, the US government loved the ICC’s territorial jurisdiction.

Joe Biden called the charges “justified”. Even Senator Lindsey Graham, an influential foreign policy voice, applauded. The South Carolina Republican, who died this weekend, engineered a unanimous Senate resolution supporting the ICC.

The love affair was short-lived. When in November 2024 the ICC chargedIsraeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, the Israel exception to international law kicked in and the Biden administration was outraged. But the court had used the same territorial jurisdiction as for Putin – Israel had not joined the court, but Palestine, the locus of Israeli crimes (in Gaza), had. When Trump took office two months later, he imposed sanctions on certain court judges and prosecutors.

There is nothing extraordinary about territorial jurisdiction, except in the minds of US officials who want to operate above the law. If I were to murder someone on the streets of Paris, Tokyo or São Paulo, the US government could hardly object if French, Japanese or Brazilian officials prosecuted me. So why is it objectionable if I were to commit war crimes on their territory, and instead of charging me themselves, they deferred to the ICC?

Beyond Putin and Netanyahu, territorial jurisdiction is the key to justice for some of today’s worst atrocities. It is needed to prosecute officials from Rwanda, which is not an ICC member, for mass atrocities of their M23 militiacommitted in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has joined the court. It is essential for prosecuting officials from the United Arab Emirates, also not an ICC member, for sending arms and mercenaries to the genocidal Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, where the ICC has jurisdiction by virtue of a UN security council resolution.

But what worries Trump officials most is the prospect that territorial jurisdiction could be used to prosecute them. For example, the court could reach the summary executions of people in suspected drug boats if any of these potential crimes against humanity took place in the territorial waters of Venezuela or Colombia, both ICC members. Trump (as well as Biden) officials could be prosecuted for aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza by continuing to provide arms and military aid as it unfolded. And Trump might be prosecuted for obstructing justice (under article 70 of the ICC’s founding Rome Statute) for having imposed sanctions on ICC officials because they pursued the case against Israeli officials in Gaza; in his Journal op-ed, Rubio mentioned my earlier Guardian column advocating that possibility.

Rubio has promised a frontal assault on the ICC, with new sanctions on court personnel and pressure on governments that cooperate with the court. He plans to highlight “the risks posed to Americans”. That is unlikely to convince anyone. What he really means is the risk that Trump officials might be brought to justice for war crimes committed in ICC states. God forbid!

• Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments“

 

In Houston, a Different Kind of Mourning After Fatal ICE Shooting

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“In Houston’s Magnolia Park, a predominantly Latino neighborhood, the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent has sparked grief and anger. While the mourning has been more subdued compared to other cities, with residents expressing their sorrow privately and through small gestures, the incident has stirred memories of past injustices faced by the community. The neighborhood’s history of discrimination and deportation campaigns has led to a cautious approach to activism, but the killing has reignited calls for accountability and justice.

​

After a federal agent killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the grief and anger in Magnolia Park has been less visible, but no less intense.

July 17, 2026Updated 9:06 a.m. ET

A group of people prayed together at a memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on Saturday.Antranik Tavitian for The New York Times

A group of people prayed together at a memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on Saturday.Antranik Tavitian for The New York Times

In Magnolia Park, one of Houston’s oldest Latino barrios, a makeshift memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo sits on a torn-up street near the spot where he was killed.

Since Mr. Salgado Araujo, a Mexican home builder and father of three, was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last week, construction workers and landscapers in work shirts and dusty boots have often come alone to stand in silence.

Neighborhood residents have dropped off rosaries and candles. Many have worn Mexico soccer jerseys in tribute to one of Mr. Salgado Araujo’s favorite teams.

His killing has hit hard, another immigrant’s life taken by agents carrying out President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Yet, the mourning feels different in Magnolia Park.

In parks, shops and backyards in the neighborhood, people have voiced their grief in hushed tones. There are no shrill whistles or clashes with agents. There have been fewer news cameras and demonstrations than in cities like Chicago or Minneapolis.

At a restaurant, television screens alternated between clips of World Cup matches and news footage of federal agents wrestling migrants to the ground in confrontations across the country.

Maria, 52, a cashier who spoke on the condition that her last name not be published because she fears retaliation from immigration authorities, said she had lived and worked in Houston without legal status since she had left central Mexico with her daughter some 30 years ago.

She had never seen staff and customers so scared or concerned over immigration enforcement — or so angry, she said. “It could have been any one of us,” she said. For now, she added, there is little she can do but stay inside as much as possible and check her social media accounts for reports of ICE before she goes out.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s son Ronaldo Salgado speaking about his father at a vigil in Houston.Antranik Tavitian for The New York Times

Magnolia Park, home to more than 14,000 residents, has been a center of Mexican American life in Houston for generations. Many live in families where some people have legal status and others don’t.

So while there are rosary beads draped on plastic flowers and Mexican flags projecting out from telephone poles in Mr. Salgado Araujo’s honor, Magnolia Park residents say their response has been muted in a community conditioned by a painful history of discrimination that has taught residents to be cautious about using their voice.

The road now called Canal Street, where the memorial has sprung up, has been woven into the fabric of the neighborhood since it was mapped out in 1890 and adorned by more than 3,000 newly planted magnolias.

Germans, Greeks and Italians were some of the first immigrants to settle into the city’s surrounding East End. Mexican Americans from South Texas arrived in Magnolia Park more than two decades later, along with Mexican migrants fleeing the revolution convulsing their homeland.

In the 1950s, Mexicans found themselves caught up in the mass deportation campaigns under the Eisenhower administration. Local and state law enforcement officers helped U.S. Border Patrol round up Mexicans and Mexican Americans believed to be living in the United States without legal status.

Joaquin Martinez, a City Council member who represents Magnolia Park, said his father recounted life growing up in the neighborhood during that era, being bullied for being Mexican and spanked or hit with rulers in school for speaking Spanish. His father, like many Mexican and Latino elders of his generation, learned that the way to survive in Magnolia Park was this: “Keep your head down, focus on your family, work hard,” Mr. Martinez said.

But the mourning in Magnolia Park over the last 11 days has at times been pierced with sound.

On many afternoons, day laborers in white work vans, like the one in which Mr. Salgado Araujo was killed, have driven down Canal Street honking horns, fists raised out the windows. Lowriders have rolled down the road in homage, blasting cumbias, Norteñas and corridos, Mexican ballads that immortalize stories, including Mr. Salgado Araujo’s life and death:

Trembling with fear

I cried for help

Nobody could hear me

To Jesse Rodriguez, 56, a local artist who goes by Magnolia Grown, that loud, defiant public sorrow is baked into his neighborhood’s history, but one that is deeply buried. As a teenager, he and his friends drew inspiration from Pachucos, Mexican American rebels who embraced their bicultural duality through a distinct style and love of music.

Mr. Rodriguez and his wife, JoAnna, have since transformed the 100-year-old bungalow once owned by her great-grandfather into an art space and Mexican American history school. Over the past two years, their students have been learning about deportation campaigns that preceded the one unfolding under Mr. Trump.

A class last summer painted canvas pieces in response to the sweeps in Los Angeles that deck the walls. Last week, a cohort channeled its grief over the ICE killing just down the street. “We’re teaching the past, but now it’s here, not just in Houston, but right in our own neighborhood,” Mrs. Rodriguez said.

On Thursday, residents from Magnolia Park and across the Houston area packed into a chapel in the East End for Mr. Salgado Araujo’s public viewing.

For people who know the neighborhood’s painful history, the killing last week stirred memories of the 1977 death of José “Joe” Campos Torres, a Mexican American Army veteran.

In May 1977, a group of white Houston police officers pulled Mr. Campos Torres, 23, out of an East End bar and charged him with disorderly conduct. They beat him up so severely that local jailers told the officers to take him into the hospital. Instead, they pushed him into the bayou, where he drowned. His body was recovered days later.

Activists from the neighborhood marched down Canal Street in protest, over red bricks that had largely been laid by Mexican and Mexican American laborers. Months later, when news hit radio stations that an all-white jury had let the officers off on misdemeanor convictions, tensions ultimately erupted into violence the following spring.

Some residents said there was no reckoning for the officers involved, and the killing and protests faded from the city’s memory. Houston seemed to bury the episode when it poured asphalt over Canal Street’s red bricks.

What Janie Torres, Mr. Campos Torres’s sister, said she wants for Mr. Salgado Araujo — for her brother — is accountability. There was a time when she could not bear the grim details of her brother’s death. “But then I realized I could draw strength to keep fighting by putting myself in his shoes,” she said.

In the days before Mr. Salgado Araujo was killed, construction crews had stripped Canal Street to resurface the road. Some of the old red bricks were visible, and some of the mourners found themselves walking amid them as they made their way to his memorial. A worker who lived nearby helped craft wooden shelves to hold some of the candles spilling onto the street. Another hammered a saw, a yardstick and other tools into it to honor Mr. Salgado Araujo’s labors.

One night late last week, a couple of residents were lighting candles and debating whether to relocate the memorial. The rains had stopped, and construction crews were expected on Canal Street any day to pave back over the red bricks.

Jazmine Ulloa is a national reporter covering immigration for The Times.“

Why the Trump Admin Tries to ERASE Black History

 

Why the Trump Admin Tries to ERASE Black History

The Real Reason Trump Is Targeting Marginalized Communities

 

Todd Blanche, Trump’s Attorney General Pick, Faces Crucial Hurdle After Rocky Hearing - The New York Times

Blanche Faces Crucial Hurdle After Rocky Hearing

"Even a single Republican “no” vote would block Mr. Blanche’s nomination from consideration by the full Senate, which could sink his confirmation.

Todd Blanche on Wednesday at his confirmation hearing to be attorney general. It is not clear when the Senate Judiciary Committee will schedule a vote.Kenny Holston/The New York Times

July 15, 2026Updated 4:55 p.m. ET

The fate of Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general remained uncertain on Wednesday after a rocky confirmation hearing in which a Republican senator raised serious questions about his role in creating a $1.8 billion fund for purported victims of Justice Department persecution.

The senator, John Cornyn of Texas, who was defeated by a Trump-backed opponent in a primary election, grilled Mr. Blanche about the fund and a related agreement granting President Trump and his family sweeping immunity from tax investigations.

Mr. Cornyn, a former judge, displayed text of the tax provision on a poster behind him and noted that Mr. Trump “has not agreed in writing” to nixing the fund.

After the hearing, he said he had not made up his mind. “I don’t have to make a decision now, so I’m not,” he said during a brief interview at the Capitol.

Even a single Republican “no” vote on the Judiciary Committee would block Mr. Blanche’s nomination from consideration by the full Senate, which could sink his confirmation. A second lame-duck Republican on the committee, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, is also undecided but has said he is leaning toward voting “yes.”

Mr. Blanche’s confirmation is somewhat symbolic. He could serve in an acting capacity for the remainder of Mr. Trump’s term. But the referendum on Mr. Blanche is in a broader sense one on the president’s vision of the department as a projection of his power and extension of his will.

The unusual two-part deal approved by Mr. Blanche, intended to resolve Mr. Trump’s lawsuit demanding at least $10 billion from the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, emerged as a major issue in a confirmation already clouded by questions about Mr. Blanche. As a top Justice Department official, he has had a role in protecting the president’s interests in the Jeffrey Epstein case and complying with Trump-ordered investigations of political opponents.

It is not clear when the committee will schedule a vote. First, Republicans must find a replacement for Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican whose death over the weekend cast a shadow on the proceedings.

Mr. Blanche, a former Trump defense lawyer, has served as acting attorney general since the president fired his predecessor, Pam Bondi, in April for not moving quickly enough to prosecute his perceived enemies.

transcript

“Did you talk to the president about the settlement? He originally sued for $10 billion and settled for an apology. And this weaponization fund, and then the release of future liability for tax audits. Did you discuss it with him?” “No — he had outside counsel. I did not discuss it with his outside counsel, either. It was done by other people in the office.” “And — this was a lawsuit brought —” “Can I qualify that?” “Sure.” “After — when we determined not to move forward, as the president has said, that’s the only time that he and I had any conversations about this at all was after when it was dead. When we said we’re not moving forward.” “And this lawsuit was brought against the I.R.S. and Treasury, yet this release purports to — apply to defendants or other agencies or departments. So does this release apply to let’s say, an investigation by the Security and Exchange Commission or some other federal agency?” “No that’s the standard language that we use when we enter into settlements between plaintiffs and the I.R.S. But no, it doesn’t bind. It’s issued by me because statutes require and authorize me to do that as opposed to other cabinet members. And in this case, it binds only the I.R.S. and by extension, the Treasury.” “Well, I hear what you’re saying, but I certainly don’t read that in the agreement.”

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, via Associated Press

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, questioning Todd Blanche.

Defying a president’s choice for such an important position would be an extraordinary gesture of defiance, even from a senator, like Mr. Cornyn, on his way out.

Justice Department officials have expressed confidence that Mr. Blanche will, ultimately, have the votes in the committee and the Senate at large. After he concluded his appearance, he walked back to a legislative conference room where the din of cheers and applause could be heard through an open door.

It would be the capstone of a career that a few years ago seemed destined to be confined to the middle rungs of the New York-area legal community.

Before joining the president’s legal team a few years ago, Mr. Blanche earned a reputation as a highly competent federal prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office. Democrats turned that perception against him.

Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a former federal prosecutor whom Mr. Trump has targeted for prosecution, accused Mr. Blanche of abandoning his ethical principles to serve his boss.

“What happened to the Todd Blanche who was a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York?” he asked. “What happened to the prosecutor people had respect for?”

Mr. Blanche, riled up, demanded the right to respond. “I am still here — I am the same exact person I was when I was a federal prosecutor,” he said, adding that his personal credo was “do the right thing, enforce the laws and put bad guys in jail.”

Mr. Blanche, typically a cautious and well-prepared congressional witness, made a significant unforced error that could fuel Democrats’ criticism of him as a Trump loyalist who has continued to act as the president’s personal lawyer in a post that requires a commitment to independence in the public interest.

Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican known for his folksy asides, asked Mr. Blanche what seemed to be a softball question: Did he consider the president to be his friend?

“I’m his lawyer,” Mr. Blanche replied, instantly correcting himself to add “was his lawyer.”

transcript

“I’m his lawyer — was his lawyer, and now I’m the Deputy Attorney General. So I met him as his criminal defense attorney. I’m not sure there’s very many people who have ever had a criminal defense attorney who calls that person their friend. I now have a —” “Well, let me put it this way: Are you enemies? No, we’re not enemies at all. No.”

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, via Associated Press

Mr. Blanche answering a question from Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana.

When Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, asked Mr. Blanche whether Mr. Trump was eligible to run again in 2028, Mr. Blanche replied, “I don’t believe he is.”

Later, under questioning from a Democrat on the committee, Mr. Blanche maintained that he was unafraid to push back against Mr. Trump and prided himself on offering dispassionate legal counsel.

“Counsel does not mean yes-man,” said Mr. Blanche, craning forward in the witness chair in a dark navy suit.

Mr. Blanche put a bit of distance between himself and Mr. Trump on the issue of judicial impeachments. He said he did not believe that federal judges should be removed for issuing rulings against the president or the administration, a position counter to the one Mr. Trump has boisterously embraced.

Mr. Blanche said he personally authorized the subpoenas that the Trump administration issued to New York Times journalists over reporting on the insufficient defenses of an airplane donated by Qatar that was retrofitted to serve as Air Force One.

“We’re not targeting reporters — they’re material witnesses, just like a reporter would be a material witness to a car crash,” Mr. Blanche said, adding, “The question we want to ask them is who provided them with classified national security information.”

Mr. Blanche’s comments came in response to questions from Senator Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont, who emphasized that it was “extremely important to protect the right of the press to have confidential sources.”

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee chairman, sought to fend off criticism of Mr. Blanche in his opening statement, calling investigations of Mr. Trump during the Biden administration an attack on the rule of law.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, the top Democrat on the committee, cast Mr. Blanche as a partisan actor. He said the department had charged James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, “for taking pictures of seashells,” referring to an image of shells arranged on a beach as “86 47” that the Justice Department said constituted a threat against the president.

That elicited scattered laughter in the spectators gallery.

Mr. Blanche was pressed repeatedly on his views about Mr. Trump’s mass clemency for his supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a presidential action that Mr. Tillis has identified as a potential justification for voting “no” on the nomination.

He trod a gingerly path, dodging the question of his personal feelings about it, saying he was not “celebrating” pardons of about 200 violent rioters while asserting Mr. Trump’s right under the Constitution to pardon whomever he chose.

Mr. Blanche distanced himself from Jared Wise, a Jan. 6 rioter who served on Mr. Blanche’s staff before resigning this year, and whom Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, cited in his questioning. “I did not hire the person referenced,” Mr. Blanche said.

Mr. Blanche was, in general, less voluble and more decorous in his responses than Ms. Bondi, whose reliance on clunky, prepared attacks on Democrats contributed to her dismissal. But he did bare his teeth several times.

After Mr. Whitehouse asked how long he intended to “put up with that Kash Patel character” as F.B.I. director, citing reports of Mr. Patel’s lavish government-funded travel and the use of agents to guard his girlfriend, Mr. Blanche shot back with, “That’s an extraordinarily obnoxious question.”

Questions from Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, including about the arrests of Mr. Trump’s political adversaries, angered Mr. Blanche.Kenny Holston/The New York Times

He became particularly angered when Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, grilled him about arrests of Mr. Trump’s political adversaries, allegations of ethical impropriety regarding his public appearances and how he had handled aspects of the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of working with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually exploit underage girls.

“You can ask the questions, but you cannot control my answers,” Mr. Blanche said.

What made the hearing, with all its predictable partisan sniping, different was the acute and persistent questioning by Mr. Cornyn, who arrived in the Senate in 2002 — a year before Mr. Blanche graduated Brooklyn Law School, taking night classes while working as a paralegal.

Mr. Cornyn immediately zeroed in on Mr. Blanche’s refusal to put on paper claims that the $1.8 billion fund was dead, noting that Mr. Trump, as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, had also not signed any document saying it had been killed.

Mr. Tillis was notably less adversarial. But he echoed Mr. Cornyn’s concerns about the fund and said he wanted “to stick a fork in it” by passing a bill to kill it once and for all. Senate Republicans largely rejected a previous effort to use legislation to bar such taxpayer-funded payouts to Jan. 6 defendants and others.

He seemed reassured with the answers he got from Mr. Blanche, suggesting that some of his concerns about the department’s support of Jan. 6 rioters had been allayed.

“You’ve done a great job today,” Mr. Tillis said at the end of his questioning.

Mr. Cornyn also believed that Mr. Blanche did a good job. But he appeared skeptical about his capacity to balance the department’s needs with the president’s demands.

“It’s a very difficult position to be in, as I also said, to be the president’s personal lawyer and then to end up being a member of the cabinet,” he told reporters.

Karoun Demirjian, Andrew Duehren and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.

Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.

Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.

Alan Feuer is a reporter for The Times who covers the effects President Trump has had on the courts, the Justice Department and the broader rule of law."

Todd Blanche, Trump’s Attorney General Pick, Faces Crucial Hurdle After Rocky Hearing - The New York Times

ICE Shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo Through Open Passenger Window in Houston, Witnesses Say - The New York Times

Witnesses Say ICE Fired Fatal Shot Into Open Passenger Window in Houston

"A congresswoman and a lawyer relayed witness accounts that diverge from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s version of the fatal encounter.

July 13, 2026

U.S. Immigration Crackdown

Family members embracing next to a makeshift memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at the location where he was shot by an ICE agent in Houston.Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

The shot that killed a man during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation last week in Houston was fired into the front passenger side window, according to a local congresswoman and a lawyer who spoke with witnesses who were in the vehicle.

The precise moment of the shooting of the man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, remains unclear in video evidence obtained by The New York Times. But witnesses gave firsthand accounts to Representative Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat who represents part of the Houston area, and Ruby Powers, a lawyer representing the victim’s younger brother, who was the front-seat passenger.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was driving to work at a construction site with his brother, Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, and two other passengers when ICE agents began tailing them.

Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo and Daniel Tirado Pantoja, a fellow construction worker, spoke at length this weekend to Ms. Garcia at a detention center about Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s last moments, on Canal Street in Houston. Ms. Powers spoke with her client, Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo.

The ICE agents did not identify themselves as they approached the van shortly before 7 a.m. on Tuesday after it slowed on Canal Street, Ms. Garcia said.

It is unclear from available video whether ICE agents identified themselves.

The Times obtained footage from earlier in the pursuit — roughly 2.5 miles north of Canal — where the ICE vehicles had flashing emergency lights on. But footage from Canal Street shows no emergency lights were activated during this portion of the events.

The Times obtained video from earlier in the pursuit from a used car dealer 2.5 miles north of the van’s final stop on Canal Street. In the video, which The Times has slowed down to 15 percent of its original speed, flashing lights can be seen on the ICE vehicles.

Ms. Garcia said, according to her conversations with both men, that after the van came to its final stop, an agent fired a single shot through the lowered front passenger window, striking Mr. Salgado Araujo.

Mr. Salgado Araujo then got out of the van before agents pulled him to the ground, Ms. Garcia added. He died shortly after.

Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo gave his account of this moment to Ms. Powers, his lawyer. He told her that he heard a man on foot yell “Stop!” as he approached the front passenger door of the van on Canal Street. Then the man fired a single shot through the front passenger window, Ms. Powers said.

After Mr. Salgado Araujo was struck, his brother described seeing him in pain and clutching his back, Ms. Powers said.

The brother emphasized, Ms. Powers said, that the men inside the van did not know that law enforcement officials were chasing them.

Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo told Ms. Powers that the van contained only tools and work items. “A cooler, and water and Gatorade,” she said.

All three passengers are undocumented Mexican nationals who had been living in the United States for decades, according to Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, a lawyer for two of them.

The agents had been searching for two other people, including a Guatemalan man they believed was inside the van, when they began trailing Mr. Salgado Araujo, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation who were not permitted to speak about the case. Neither target was in the van. ICE has said that the agents and vehicles involved were not equipped with cameras.

The shooting is one of a growing number of encounters in which immigration agents have fired at civilians during enforcement operations. More than 20 people have been shot at since September, nearly all while inside vehicles, and several have been killed. On Monday, an ICE agent shot a man dead in Biddeford, Maine.

In the Houston encounter, it is difficult to say whether the available video footage from Canal Street, which is low resolution and shows only a partial, obstructed view of the interactions, captured when the fatal shot was fired.

A video filmed by a camera at a nearby gas station shows the moment the van comes to a final and complete stop. One of the side doors opens, and movement is visible on the passenger side of the van. It’s unclear if the source of movement is an agent, someone in the vehicle or both.

Seconds later, the footage shows one agent next to the front passenger side door moving his right arm toward his hip.

The agent then steps toward the van, pointing an object in his right hand in the direction of the vehicle. It is unclear what this object is, or whether it is a weapon. There is also no visible indication of any firing or discharge, but the view is obscured by a telephone pole and passing vehicles.

With legs spread apart, the agent appears to lower his right hand back to his hip as he pulls open the front passenger side door with his left hand. He appears to struggle for several seconds to return the object to his hip.

Footage shows after Mr. Salgado Araujo’s van came to a final stop on Canal Street, an agent standing near the front passenger door pointed an object toward the vehicle.

ICE said in a statement on Monday that agents had tried to pull over Mr. Salgado Araujo’s vehicle as part of a “targeted enforcement operation” and that an agent fired in “self-defense” after Mr. Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle.”

Last week, the agency said that Mr. Salgado Araujo had rammed an ICE vehicle, had not followed orders and had tried to run over an officer, but it has presented no evidence to back up its claims.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it was investigating the shooting, and that the F.B.I.’s Houston office is “leading an investigation into the potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer.”

Ms. Garcia said the accounts of ICE and the two detained witnesses with whom she spoke are “almost like a different event.”

“They both said — and I visited with them independently — that none of them in any way touched, struck or contemplated even approaching the officers because they were inside the car,” she added.

The third witness in the van, José Trinidad Rojas, declined to speak to the congresswoman, but Mr. Balderas-Ibarra, the lawyer representing him and Mr. Pantoja, said that what Ms. Garcia had heard was consistent with what his clients had told him.

Mimi Dwyer contributed reporting. Dmitriy Khavin contributed video production."

ICE Shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo Through Open Passenger Window in Houston, Witnesses Say - The New York Times

Maine ICE Shooting: What We Know About the Death of Joan Sebastian Guerrero - The New York Times

Maine ICE Shooting: What We Know About the Death of Joan Sebastian Guerrero

Updated July 14, 2026, 9:16 a.m. ETU.S. Immigration Crackdown

• Killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
• Fatal ICE Shooting in Maine
• Surge of ICE Arrests
• Unsanitary Detention Center
• Immigration Rulings

What We Know About the ICE Shooting in Maine

A federal immigration agent shot and killed a man in a car on Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine. It was the second fatal encounter in a week involving an agent and a person in a vehicle.

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Witnesses in Biddeford, Maine, heard gunfire early Monday morning.Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times

By Madaleine Rubin

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a man in a vehicle on Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine. It was the second fatal episode in a week, as the Trump administration continues its immigration crackdown, and the latest in a string of encounters between agents and people in cars.

The man was identified as Joan Sebastian Guerrero, according to Matthew Felling, a spokesman for Senator Angus King of Maine.

Joan Sebastian Guerrerovia Facebook

The Homeland Security Department said in a statement on Monday that ICE agents had been monitoring what they believed to be the residence of someone who was in the country illegally and for whom they had a removal order.

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It was unclear from the department’s statement whether Mr. Guerrero was the person agents had been seeking.

Video recorded early on Monday and posted to social media showed agents surrounding a body next to a car with bullet holes in the windshield. 

“I heard agony,” said Mary Hayes, a local resident, who said she saw a screaming woman on her knees, next to a young girl. “I heard a howl that came from your soul, that your whole life had just changed and it was never going to be the same.”

Here’s what we know:

Witnesses heard gunfire early Monday morning.

On Monday morning, agents tried to stop a vehicle that had departed from the residence they were monitoring, D.H.S. said in its statement, which came nearly 12 hours after the shooting.

“The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” the statement continued. The driver was struck and died from his injuries.

In a separate communication received by some members of Congress, the department used more pointed language, saying the driver had “weaponized his vehicle toward law enforcement.”

As of Monday evening, no video evidence confirming the government’s version of events had emerged.

People who live nearby reported hearing gunfire at an intersection at around 7:15 a.m. Several reported seeing a body on the ground next to a car.

Biddeford’s congresswoman, Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, said in a phone interview on Monday that “we have gotten reports that ICE officers shot through a car window, and the individual in the car was killed.”

Immigration officials have said little about the victim.

Though Mr. King’s office named Mr. Guerrero as the victim, the D.H.S. statement did not.

Three advocacy groups released information about the victim in the shooting but did not name Mr. Guerrero. In a joint statement, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine, identified him as a 26-year-old Colombian man. A third group said he had a partner and a young child. The source of the advocates’ information was unclear, and could not be immediately confirmed with the authorities.

The embassy of Colombia said in a statement on Monday that it was assisting the family of a Colombian national who had died in Biddeford. The embassy said it was also requesting information from D.H.S. “regarding the circumstances surrounding this lamentable death.”

Mr. King, an independent, said on Monday that he had spoken with Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary. Mr. King said that Mr. Mullin had told him that the man had been the target of an arrest warrant “based upon his immigration status.”

But Mr. Felling, the senator’s spokesman, said later that Mr. Mullin called the senator again and told him the driver had not been the target of any warrant. “He said they were looking for someone, essentially, and the person they shot was not the person they were looking for,” Mr. Felling said.

Officials are demanding a full investigation.

Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, said in a statement that the State Police and other agencies were consulting with federal officials to “determine the facts of what occurred this morning.”

Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, called for a “full and impartial investigation.”

“We will get answers, but we do not have them yet,” said Liam LaFountain, the mayor of Biddeford, who also pushed for an investigation.

This is the second death in a week involving an ICE agent firing into a vehicle.

Amid a national surge in immigration enforcement, a federal agent last week shot and killed another individual in a vehicle: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican man who died after a traffic stop in Houston.

Mr. Salgado Araujo, a construction worker and father of three who had lived in the country for more than 30 years without legal status, was not the initial target of the officers who pursued his vehicle, according to immigration officials.

The Houston and Maine killings add to a growing list of encounters between immigration agents and people in vehicles.

About 20 people have been shot at in their cars, some of them fatally. Federal officials have in several cases claimed that the agents’ actions were justified because their lives had been endangered by “weaponized” vehicles. Witnesses of the Houston shooting said that Mr. Salgado Araujo had not used his vehicle as a weapon.

As in the shooting of Mr. Salgado Araujo, it appeared that federal agents were not wearing body cameras on Monday, Mr. King said. So “we have no video evidence of what occurred in this case,” he added.

Shootings involving federal immigration officers

The list includes people who were fired upon during immigration enforcement activities in President Trump’s second term. U.S. citizens are noted with an asterisk.

Note: Data includes all shootings involving on-duty federal immigration agents that have occurred in the interior of the United States since January 2025.

Immigration arrests are on the rise nationwide.

Daily arrests of immigrants in the United States doubled in the last week of June and have continued to increase, signaling a reinvigoration of the president’s crackdown after a spring slowdown.

Immigrants make up about 5 percent of Maine’s population and have helped prop up the state’s economy, hampered by its aging population. Over the years, Maine has welcomed waves of refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East and several African countries.

In January, ICE detained hundreds of immigrants in the state during an enforcement surge the agency called “Operation Catch of the Day” — a reference to Maine’s commercial seafood industry.

Now, locals say agents have returned, making frequent appearances in Biddeford in recent months. Biddeford, a working-class city of roughly 22,000, contains a growing community of Latin American immigrants.

Talla Fall, who is originally from Senegal, lives near where the shooting took place on Monday. ICE agents have been in the neighborhood “every day, every week,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Jacey Fortin, Heather Beasley Doyle, Miriam Jordan, Hamed Aleaziz, Christina Morales, Aric Toler, Allison McCann, Soumya Karlamanglaand Murray Carpenter."

Maine ICE Shooting: What We Know About the Death of Joan Sebastian Guerrero - The New York Times