Witnesses Who Were Arrested After Texas ICE Killing Say ICE Is Lying

The men who were in Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s vehicle when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed him on Tuesday say he did not try ram the immigration agents’ unmarked car—directly contradicting ICE’s version of events.

The agents stated that Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant and father of three who was on his way to work, had ignored their verbal commands, “weaponized his vehicle,” and tried to run over one of them. The agent shot him and claimed self-defense.

“That is a lie,” Jose Trinidad Rojas, 51, said in a handwritten statement offered to The Washington Post by his lawyer, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra. “It is impossible for them to say that they were going to get run over.... There were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides.... Lorenzo thought we had lost them but suddenly they surrounded us.”

Balderas-Ibarra said he spoke to Rojas and the two other passengers—Daniel Tirado Pantoja and Victor Salgado, Salgado Araujo’s brother—separately, and each stated that ICE lied about Salgado Araujo’s violent intent. Victor also said that agents began firing from their vehicle’s passenger side, striking his brother in the abdomen and then mocking him while he bled out, saying, “You wanted to escape, right?”

All four men in the car had been in the United States for at least two decades. They were arrested and taken into custody shortly after the shooting.

Not only do these witnesses say ICE is lying, the footage of the incident suggests they were too. Video obtained by local outlet KHOU 11 shows the agents tried to box Salgado Araujo’s car in with their unmarked black SUV, initiating the conflict. When Salgado Araujo made a U-turn and fled in the other direction, the agents (who could have been anyone to him, as they were in an unmarked vehicle) followed him. Even worse, The New York Times reported that Salgado Araujo wasn’t even the intended target—they were hunting two immigrants from Guatemala. Now Salgado Araujo is dead for no reason. He is the tenth person to be fatally shot by federal immigration agents since President Trump returned to office.

The White House Office of Budget and Management is planning massive changes to the way federal grants are handed out, making it so that government funding can only be spent on programs that are “aligned with administration policies and priorities.”

If passed, the new rules would also allow President Trump’s political appointees to supersede federal agencies’ merit-based decisions in order to ensure the grants “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.” There is also a portion of the proposal that bans the use of “theories of disparate-impact liability”—a legal concept that helps determine when a policy is disproportionately discriminatory.

Experts argue that the change would give Trump’s political appointees, most of whom are not experts, undue control over what kind of research gets funded. 

“This touches all parts of American life,” Veterans Administration psychiatrist Dr. Eric Rafla-Yuan told the Los Angeles Times in an article published Friday. “Control of how all of the federal grants and programs are funded will fall under a small group of highly partisan individuals who would have very few limits on how they spend these billions of taxpayer dollars.… If there’s a specific age range that is at higher risk for suicide, and we want to figure out, well, what’s going on with people that are aged 14 to 19 … we can’t do that under the wording in this rule.”

A massive group of various experts in fields ranging from cancer research to public housing have come out against the proposal, and there are over 100,000 comments on it. OMB published the proposed rule in the federal register in May, and the comment period ends July 13.

“A significant number of the provisions in this proposal would in fact increase administrative complexity, create uncertainty for grant recipients, reduce transparency in funding decisions, and undermine the merit-based processes that have effectively guided federal research investments,” the American Association for Cancer Research said in a statement. “This OMB proposal is reckless and does not meet the high U.S. standards required for a meritorious, impactful research grant program.”

The Planetary Society wrote in its own statement, “Science is the backbone of the American economy, generating a 3-to-1 return on the taxpayer’s investment. Our nation has always relied on merit-based, independent scientific review to select the best ideas and new technologies for development. The proposed rule changes would all but end the use of scientific merit in the selection of grants and programs across the government.”

Even Republican Senator Susan Collins expressed her concern, writing that it would “inject uncertainty into the Federal award process, especially for awards that span multiple years and phases and make these awards more costly.” She also noted that the “termination of clinical trials would leave patients without treatment and could well result in significant scientific and financial losses to both the recipient and the Federal government.” 

The OMB, led by Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, has been one of the president’s most favored tools of administrative destruction, as it’s helped him do everything from slashing crucial programs like U.S. Agency for International Development to shifting money toward his White House ballroom.  

Donald Trump is pitching a fit over a potential bipartisan legislative win in a futile attempt to advance the SAVE America Act.

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, which is polling at 97 percent with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats,” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday morning.

But Trump’s protest is pointless: the Constitution states that bills automatically become law after 10 days if the president neither signs nor vetoes them. The housing affordability measure passed both chambers of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support, and Trump has not indicated that he will issue a last-minute veto of the measure. It is currently scheduled to become law at midnight.

The SAVE America Act, on the other hand, sparked nationwide controversy earlier this year, particularly over a detail in the first version of the bill that would have made it more difficult for married women to vote. Backlash over the bill has been so severe that, in the months since Trump insisted it should be Congress’s top priority, dispute over the voter ID bill has gummed up efforts to fund the Department of Homeland Security, stalled attempts to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, and upended Trump’s own cabinet nominations.

The original SAVE America Act suggested numerous amendments to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, including line items that would abolish mail-in voting, require voters to bring proof of citizenship and proof of residency to register to vote, require voter ID, and mandate voter roll purges every 30 days.

But the bill has been radically pared down since then, in large part due to the improbability of passing it in whole. House Speaker Mike Johnson has claimed that the current iteration of the act proposed by the lower chamber preserves the “backbone” of what Trump is pushing to pass in the Senate.

That includes requirements to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote—such as a birth certificate or a U.S. passport (which only half of the population currently possesses)—and a mandate to present photo identification when casting a ballot. Trump has also insisted that the bill ban mail-in voting, describing the procedure as “crooked” and “corrupt” despite the fact that he himself has cast several mail-in ballots.

“THE SAVE AMERICA ACT’S non-passage is CRAZY, and a serious threat to any politician who votes against it!” Trump continued in his Friday post. “If the Dumocrats, or any RINO (or worse!) working with them, do not allow a positive Vote on SAVE AMERICA, TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, and pass this, and every other Bill that true Republicans have ever dreamt of (In addition to the upcoming Budget BOMB and the 1929 catastrophic style DEBT CEILING BILL!)”

But Republicans simply do not have the votes to end the filibuster or pass Trump’s unpopular voter ID bill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told The Hill last month.

Meanwhile, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is an immediate necessity to free up America’s housing market. It was drafted to address the American housing crisis, which has suffered from bottlenecked supply, stalled family growth, and surged home and rental prices across the country. The bill will funnel resources towards increasing housing supply, streamlined environmental reviews, and force the Department of Housing and Urban Development to address red-tape issues related to zoning and land-use that have historically posed barriers to housing development.

In June, Trump described the bill as “a yawn.”

Trump’s intention to detach himself from the effort comes on the heels of a bombshell report by the National Association of Realtors that indicated national home prices in June rose to the highest level on record.

“Republicans would rather make it harder to vote than easier to afford a home,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on X, responding to Trump. “When people show you who they are, believe them.”

This story has been updated.

A newly released video appears to show Senator Mitch McConnell being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher as he was transported to the hospital last month.

CNN spoke to a neighbor of the Kentucky senator and former Senate majority leader, who said that they saw two ambulances, a fire truck, and Capitol Police officers blocking their street at 8:30 a.m. on June 14. That neighbor took a video of emergency responders pushing a person, whose face is not visible, on a stretcher to an ambulance.

When the neighbor asked what was going on, police officers said that there was a medical emergency. The neighbor then asked if the person having the emergency was McConnell, to which the officers replied they would close the street for any person, according to CNN. The neighbor said that another witness told them that McConnell was the person on the stretcher and wasn’t wearing an oxygen mask.

“He’s in a stretcher, and he’s in some sort like orange foam looking blanket type thing,” the neighbor told the news outlet, adding that they could see McConnell’s uncovered feet, which did not appear to be moving. The first responders did not seem to be moving urgently, the neighbor noted.

“In a situation where perhaps time is of the essence, there seems to be a little bit more urgency, but there was no urgency here,” the neighbor said to CNN.

Very little information is known about McConnell’s condition, as his office hasn’t divulged much information in the nearly one month he’s been at George Washington University Hospital, only to say that he’s been receiving “excellent care.” Some on the right speculate that McConnell is brain-dead or worse, as no pictures or audio of the senator have been made public.

McConnell’s congressional colleagues claim to have spoken to him on the phone, but the public has not seen anything about McConnell’s physical or mental state. Kentucky’s Democratic Governor Andy Beshear is demanding answers from McConnell’s office on what’s going on.

Donald Trump has completely neutered the Election Assistance Commission.

The last three remaining members of the four-member bipartisan commission were forced out of the independent agency Thursday. The two Democratic appointees—Thomas Hicks and Benjamin W. Hovland—were fired via an email notice from the White House Presidential Personnel ​Office, according to inside sources that spoke with Reuters. The agency’s Republican commissioner—Christy McCormick—recieved a call and was asked to resign, reported NBC News.

“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance ​Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” read the termination email delivered to the two Democratic appointees.

The Election Assistance Commission, or EAC, was created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to help states administer elections. It has also provided consultation on voting procedures. Its fourth commissioner left the agency in April.

The mass overhaul comes in the immediate wake of a Supreme Court decision—Trump v. Slaughter—that granted the president more power over independent agencies late last month. The 6–3 decision overturned Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 91-year-old precedent that had historically shielded staffers at such agencies from political interference by protecting them from being fired by the president at will.

The White House confirmed the terminations later on Thursday, suggesting that the EAC commissioners had not passed the Trump administration’s loyalty test.

“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring ​every legal vote is counted,” a White House official said in a statement that cited the Supreme Court’s decision.

The White House told NBC News that all of the EAC’s members “will be replaced,” though doing so will require presidential appointments and subsequent Senate confirmations. Considering Capitol Hill’s current appointment turnaround times (as influenced by Trump’s demands around the SAVE America Act), that process could take an extraordinarily long amount of time at a point when America only has a few short months until a contentious midterm season.