Hundreds of people went this Thursday to a funeral home in East End, a majority Hispanic neighborhood of Houston (Texas), to say goodbye to Lorenzo Salgado, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant who was shot last week by an agent of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE).

Salgado's family - his wife and three children - opened the wake to the public and invited the community to honor his memory and pray a rosary in his honor.

The main hall of the funeral home was full of loved ones and relatives, some dressed in blue at the request of their children. Outside, dozens of people lined up in the Texas summer heat to express their condolences.

The wake was held with the coffin open, while a mariachi group performed songs in memory of Salgado, who had lived in the United States for 35 years. Standing in front of their father's body, his three children received the attendees one by one, whom they shook hands and hugged.

At the entrance to the room, on a wooden table, rested two construction helmets, a symbol of the trade with which he supported his family and paid for his three children's studies. Attendees could write goodbye messages on them with blue markers.

Esther Morales, a Houston resident and retired after a career in the financial sector, was one of the people who came to the funeral home “with a broken heart.”

"I don't understand how someone can murder a person like that in the street and then go home as if nothing had happened. We are not going to let this remain like this, we are not going to let it be forgotten," the woman told EFE.

On the morning of Tuesday, July 7, Salgado was driving to a construction site with his brother Víctor and two other men when they were intercepted by ICE agents traveling in unmarked vehicles, according to testimonies collected by lawyers representing witnesses to the incident.

One of the officers fired through the driver's window and a bullet hit Salgado in the torso. The immigrant was later taken to a local hospital, where he died from his injury.

Salgado is one of at least 11 people who have died at the hands of ICE agents since President Donald Trump returned to power in January 2025.

The Government's version contradicts that of the direct witnesses, who were detained by agents after the incident and remain held in immigration detention centers.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which ICE is a part, claims that Salgado crashed his vehicle into that of the agents, tried to run over one of them and ignored verbal orders from the authorities.

The agents decided to stop Salgado's vehicle because they observed inside a person who, according to National Security, resembled the target of a surveillance operation that was taking place in a nearby home.

For César Espinosa, co-founder of the immigrant rights organization FIEL Houston, the fact that Salgado's family has decided to hold a public wake demonstrates “the character and heart they have.”

“They could have kept everything private, but they want the community to see their father, to realize the magnitude of what happened, and they want to share this last moment,” the activist, dressed in black pants and shirt, told EFE.

"He shouldn't be there; he should be enjoying his afternoons, eating with his wife, listening to music, living his life. Living," added the representative of the pro-immigrant NGO.