U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stood in front of a mural bearing the image of the late Lorenzo Salgado Araujo Monday and said President Donald Trump’s brutal immigration enforcement tactics must come to an end, implying that could happen if the Democrats become the majority party during the November midterms.
Araujo, 52, a longtime Houston home builder, was fatally shot by an ICE agent while driving to work in the Magnolia Park neighborhood on July 7. Araujo had no criminal record and he wasn’t the intended target of the immigration sting, Department of Homeland Security officials acknowledged after his death.
Jeffries, flanked by Congressional Democrats Christian Menefee and Sylvia Garcia and surrounded by Texas lawmakers, labor leaders and immigration rights activists, lamented the narrow passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill last July. The legislation “ripped away Medicaid and gave ICE a $75 billion slush fund” that would ultimately harm dozens of law-abiding residents, he said.
“Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the people here in America, not to brutalize and kill American citizens or violently target and kill people in law-abiding immigrant communities,” Jeffries said. “We believe that immigration enforcement should be fair, just and humane. The Trump administration promised that immigration enforcement was going to target violent felons. That’s not what’s happening.”
It’s got to end, the New York congressman said.
“It’s unacceptable, unconscionable and un-American,” he said. “As House Democrats, we’re committed to getting the situation turned around. We know we have a broken immigration system. We know it needs to be fixed in a comprehensive and bipartisan way.”
Menefee, who was elected to fill an unexpired term earlier this year and is on the November 3 ballot for re-election, said he heard from a union worker on Monday that she believes ICE is in Houston “to murder us.”
The congressman says that ICE is a rogue agency that is acting as a terror squad, not a police force. “Democrats will be marching together, arm in arm, come January, when we are in the majority, with a clear vision to take on ICE and to stop them from terrorizing our communities,” he said.
Garcia’s proposed American Dream and Promise Act, which aims to provide permanent legal protections and a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, is “just the beginning of what needs to happen to end this national nightmare,” Jeffries said.
“It will certainly include dramatic change as it relates to immigration enforcement and our continued commitment not to give a dime to Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine,” he said.
Jeffries’ news conference followed a private roundtable discussion with Houston workers,small business owners and community leaders about how Trump’s immigration tactics are affecting Houston’s workforce and the cost of living.
“Everything has become more expensive here in America because of Donald Trump’s failed and toxic policies,” Jeffries said.
Service Employees International Union Texas President Elsa Flores hosted the roundtable at the SEIU building on Harrisburg and said ICE has created a crisis in the East End.
“Our community members talked today about the fear,” she said. “We now have a workforce that is fearful of going to work every day. We know that ICE is picking up workers. They’re not focusing on criminals. They’re focusing on members of this community. We need ICE out of our communities. We need immediate action taken.”
She said the mural of Araujo symbolizes the resilience of the immigrant communities. “We are not just a number that they get to achieve their goals. We are voters and we are voting for our families,” she said.
Houston has become a battleground in the immigration debate since Araujo’s death more than three months ago.
When the shooting occurred, three witnesses — members of Araujo’s construction crew — were immediately taken into ICE custody. More than a month passed before all three were released. Such actions are not only cruel and unnecessary, they also disrupt the workforce, Garcia said.
“ICE enforcement is not just hurting immigrant families; it’s hurting the Houston economy,” she said. “Make no mistake, this is an affordability issue. When workers are afraid to show up to work, families lose paychecks. When customers are afraid to leave their homes, restaurants and small businesses lose money. When construction workers are afraid to go to a job site, homes will not get built.”
Garcia cited a survey conducted by Texas construction firms that shows one in four workers isn’t showing up due to fear of deportation. The decreased workforce and high tariffs on lumber have increased the price of homes, she said. According to the Texas Restaurant Association, 36 percent of restaurant operators reported losing employees and 26 percent said they’d lost customers because they’re afraid to go out in public.
“You cannot claim to be helping working families while you are supporting aggressive, out-of-control enforcement tactics that threaten paychecks, hurt our businesses and put our families at risk. We can enforce immigration [policy] while treating people with dignity and respect.”
Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the immigrant-led civil rights organization FIEL Houston, has said that Hispanic men in work trucks are being pulled over by ICE agents in what appears to be a racial profiling effort to meet a quota. That means undocumented workers, particularly those who do landscaping and construction work, are afraid to leave their homes. It’s also impacted housekeepers and kitchen staff at local restaurants.
Additionally, people who are naturalized citizens or even American-born have resorted to carrying around their papers with them because they could be detained and temporarily separated from their families, Espinosa has said.
More than 70 percent of the detainees in ICE custody have no criminal record, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
