Greg Sargent writes:

After a federal agent killed an undocumented Mexican man in his van during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday, the government rushed to follow a familiar template. Just as it has after other shootings, the Department of Homeland Security released a statement insisting that the man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, had “weaponized his vehicle” against the officer, who then justifiably opened fire. DHS offered no evidence of this.

But it appears three other people were in the van with the now-deceased man, and they presumably could recount their version of what happened: the victim’s brother and two employees of the dead man’s construction business. They were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the encounter, and we haven’t heard from them publicly about what happened.

Now, in another potentially dark turn in the saga, those three men are under pressure from immigration officials to agree to self-deport, Juan Proaño, a representative for the families and CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, claimed in an interview with The New Republic.

Proaño—who regularly confers with the family members of the victim and the three detainees and organized a press conference on their behalf earlier this week—said the family members were able to reach the three detainees, who then related this situation.

“They’re being pressured to sign self-deportation orders,” Proaño told me. “They’re currently in detention. These men hold the key to what actually happened.” Under self-deportation, detained migrants agree to leave the country voluntarily within a prescribed time period.

According to DHS, officers tried to stop Araujo’s vehicle as part of a targeted operation, after which the undocumented Araujo “attempted to evade arrest.” DHS claimed Araujo “refused to follow multiple verbal commands” before trying to “run over” an ICE officer, who then fired “in self-defense.” Araujo, struck in the abdomen, was transported to the hospital, where he died.

Yet Araujo, 52, had been in the United States for 35 years, raised a family, and didn’t immediately seem prone to attempting vehicular manslaughter of federal law enforcement. A business owner himself, he and his passengers were driving to a job: The encounter occurred at the early hour of 6:50 a.m. ICE reportedly hasn’t presented evidence of its version of events and didn’t provide any video camera footage. [Continue reading…]