Witnesses to Texas ICE killing pressured to self-deport

Welcome to our news segment: TL;DR of Immigration News, for when the news is Too Long and you Didn’t Read it.

This is a weekly collection of immigration-related news stories. These bite-size summaries will keep you up to date without overwhelming your inbox.

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Texas ICE Killing Darkens: Rep Says Witnesses Pressured to Self-Deport

On July 7th, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Dallas resident who was driving a van and had three of his coworkers in the van with him. Although ICE claims he was attempting to “weaponize his vehicle” against the officer who shot him, Salgado Araujo’s passengers that day tell a different story, and ICE is attempting to both punish and silence them as they are trying to speak up about the murder that they witnessed.

While DHS has failed to back up their claims of “vehicle weaponization” with any evidence, the three men who would most definitely be able to tell a fuller picture of how the shooting happened are currently in ICE custody. Not only have they been unable to speak publicly about the incident, but they are under pressure from ICE to sign self-deportation orders.

“You don’t pressure witnesses to a shooting to self-deport if your goal is to get to the bottom of what happened,” said Radley Balko, a criminal justice expert who reports on ICE abuses. “You pressure them to self-deport when you want to make sure that nobody learns what actually happened.”
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Who was Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, the man killed by ICE in Biddeford?

Just days after the killing in Houston, ICE agents in Biddeford, Maine shot and killed a 26-year-old father who was driving to work. His name was Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. He had a 3-year-old daughter who may have witnessed the shooting–still in her Bluey pajamas. He was beloved by his family and his community. ICE agents were not wearing bodycams and ICE has already been obstructing local and state law enforcement in their attempts to investigate.

ICE has attempted to take some of the attention away from this murder by baiting headlines with the announcement that they have temporarily suspended most vehicle stops, followed by the president’s immediate attempt to reverse even this inadequate measure.

However, we won’t be distracted: protests have already broken out, and more action must follow.
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What’s missing from Bloomberg’s story about the DHS ‘deportation’ fleet

On Friday, Bloomberg News published a story about the Department of Homeland Security’s seven Boeing 737s and two Gulfstream 650s with the headline “DHS wants to create its own round-the-clock deportation airline.” The Bloomberg story repeats DHS’s claim that owning its own fleet will keep costs down.

The story doesn’t mention that ICE currently charters 18 to 30 aircraft every day, so even if all of their new planes are operating at capacity, they won’t be able to replace chartered planes entirely.

The truth is that these planes were purchased in a rush, and have been sitting around in hangars collecting dust since they were purchased. DHS have been trying to go on a hiring spree since at least February. Their help wanted page is still up, looking to hire for every kind of worker an airline needs. After frantically buying planes that haven’t moved for months, DHS has likely burned through hundreds of millions of dollars, and they’re unable to even hire or retain pilots and flight attendants, many of whom are quitting in disgust.
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Afghan National Dies in ICE Custody

As we mourn the loss of Lorenzo Salgado and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero we also take a moment to acknowledge others whose lives ICE has taken: Keith Porter, Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Silverio Villegas González, and Ruben Ray Martinez were gunned down by ICE agents. Nurul Amin Shah Alam and Daphy Michel were abandoned by ICE and left helpless to die on frozen streets. A staggering 21 people that we know of so far this year have died in ICE’s detention facilities and the pace of deaths is rising fast.

To that list we must add Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, an Afghan national who died in ICE custody. Paktiawal died from an anaphylactic reaction. The coroner has called it an accident but there are numerous irregularities that the regime is refusing to address. What was the substance he reacted to? How did it get into him? Why did ICE agents refuse to accept the inhaler he depended on when his wife tried to give it to them as he was arrested? And why was the date of the injury on the death certificate listed as the day before Paktiawal was taken into custody? We know he died the day after he was picked up.

During his lifetime, Paktiawal fought alongside US forces in Afghanistan. These close American ties have led Afghan veteran advocacy groups and even members of Congress to take note of what happened to him. Let’s hope they can get some answers out of the Paxton stonewall.
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New Lawsuit Alleges US Shared Asylum Application Details with Iran

A new lawsuit on behalf of Iranian asylum seekers asserts that the US government has been sharing details of asylum claims with the government of Iran. If this is true, it is a staggering outrage even by the standards of this staggeringly outrageous administration. The information in these claims is usually extremely personal and often likely to lead to imprisonment, persecution, or death upon the person’s return to the country.

Some of this cooperation stopped with the war, but not all of it. To reiterate: the federal administration is betraying asylum seekers from a nation with which it started a war.

DHS denies all this, of course, but DHS often lies.
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End note: a great article about Never Again!

If we can hype ourselves up for a minute here at the end, the excellent Shane Burley has written an excellent piece about the history and current state of Never Again Action. If you want to know more about how we got here, or want something to share with others in your life, this piece would be a great way to do that!
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Action Items:

Support Never Again Action’s organizing by making a donation today. You can make a tax deductible donation via our fiscal sponsor at this link, or you can donate directly to our 501(c)(4) organization at this link.
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If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for next week’s roundup, drop us a line at neveragainaction@gmail.com.

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