{"id":5066,"date":"2026-07-21T10:37:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T10:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5066"},"modified":"2026-07-21T10:37:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T10:37:23","slug":"arellano-two-lorenzos-from-mexico-one-fulfilled-his-american-dream-ice-killed-the-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5066","title":{"rendered":"Arellano: Two Lorenzos from Mexico. One fulfilled his American dream. ICE killed the other."},"content":{"rendered":"
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They were Mexican immigrants, both named Lorenzo.<\/p>\n

They came to this country without papers as teenagers. Lack of legal status didn\u2019t stop them from building beautiful lives \u2014 a wife, a home, a loving dog. A blue-collar job that paid the bills, weekend carne asadas with friends and family, children who followed their father\u2019s example of hard work.<\/p>\n

Read more Opinion: Don\u2019t ax proven ways to end homelessness<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lorenzos enjoyed the fruits of their labor in their adopted land, even as they battled to become American citizens while politicians demonized immigrants as invaders and worse.<\/p>\n

Lorenzo Arellano arrived in the United States in 1968 and didn\u2019t get his citizenship until nearly 30 years later. Back then, the path to naturalization was far easier.<\/p>\n

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo arrived in the early 1990s, when those opportunities were becoming severely limited.<\/p>\n

Lorenzo Arellano is my father, a happily retired truck driver living in Anaheim.<\/p>\n

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, who ran his own construction crew, was on his way to a job with his brother and two other men when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot him dead on July 7 in Houston.<\/p>\n

When I see a photo of Salgado Araujo beaming in front of a cake with the number 52 on it at the well-kept home he built with his own hands, I\u2019m reminded that we\u2019ll be celebrating my father\u2019s 75th birthday next month. When I see video of Salgado Araujo\u2019s feet twitching on the ground with two ICE agents next to him as he bleeds out and moans for help, I weep.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Only geography, age and Donald Trump separated the Lorenzos. Even their children \u2014 he had three boys, while my father had two boys and two girls \u2014 are similar. The Salgado Araujos, like the Arellanos, are college-educated. The eldest son, Ronaldo, is a teacher like my sisters. He wears glasses like me and is now telling the story of his father to the nation, as I have for decades.<\/p>\n

I write about my Papi as the puckish personification of immigrant America.<\/p>\n

Ronaldo is eulogizing his dad way too soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,\u201d Ronaldo said proudly at a news conference the day after his father\u2019s death \u2014 words I\u2019ve always said about my Papi. \u201cHe did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of \u2018Mexican man shot and killed by ICE\u2019\u201d \u2014 words I hope to never utter but can sadly see as a possibility given la migra\u2019s unapologetic shoot-first approach and indiscriminate targeting of anyone brown.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Deportation surge<\/h4>\n

Salgado Araujo\u2019s killing came as part of the Trump administration\u2019s newest deportation surge \u2014 the New York Times reported that the feds have arrested nearly 2,000 people a day since the end of June. The rate is higher than ICE\u2019s campaign of terror last summer, yet it hasn\u2019t drawn the same attention, fulfilling the promise of newish Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that la migra<\/em> would operate far more quietly and efficiently than under his reckless predecessor, Kristi Noem.<\/p>\n

Those quiet times are over.<\/p>\n

Vigils are popping up across the country in Salgado Araujo\u2019s name. Stories about his life and death have replaced those about Mexico\u2019s World Cup run on my social media timelines. They are heartbreaking, infuriating and a baleful reminder for Mexican Americans that these last five weeks of soccer, as joyful as they were, didn\u2019t change our precarious status in this country under President Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe deserved to live a quiet life as a husband, a father and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream,\u201d Ronaldo said at the news conference through tears as his younger brother, Lorenzo Jr., comforted him. That their father never will \u2014 that the Department of Homeland Security is now smearing his name by claiming he \u201cweaponized\u201d his van by trying to run over an agent, even though video evidence proves no such thing \u2014 is the latest indictment against the Trump administration\u2019s cruelty toward the undocumented.<\/p>\n

Salgado Araujo wasn\u2019t even the target of ICE\u2019s operation. His family said he had applied for a work permit and was on his way toward finally obtaining legal status.<\/p>\n

We should heed Ronaldo\u2019s words about his father. As people protest and seek justice, we should also hail the life of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo the way we one day will hail the life of Lorenzo Arellano \u2014 as Mexicans who made it, challenges be damned. And we should continue to fight for immigrants who remain in legal limbo, afraid for their lives more than ever.<\/p>\n

Read more Jarvis: It\u2019s alarmingly easy to get obesity drugs online<\/a><\/p>\n

Paternal echoes<\/h4>\n

I called my father to ask how he felt about a tocayo<\/em> \u2014 someone with the same first name \u2014 losing his life to la migra<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put myself in his place and lament that ese <\/em>[that] Lorenzo couldn\u2019t get the citizenship that I could,\u201d Papi said in Spanish.<\/p>\n

He remembered how immigration agents \u201cdid it with respect\u201d when they caught him living in this country illegally in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked you for your papers, and if you didn\u2019t have them, they put handcuffs on you, you got deported and that was that. None of these beatings or shootings that are happening now under Trump,\u201d he said. The worst it ever got was when he said he was going to Los Angeles, and an agent snapped that he was<\/em> going to L.A. but now had to return to Mexico.<\/p>\n

Papi asked me what justification ICE has offered for killing Salgado Araujo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope they put those people who killed him in prison for many years,\u201d he said with disgust. \u201cWill they?\u201d<\/p>\n

I replied that probably wasn\u2019t going to happen. ICE has shot and killed 11 people during Trump\u2019s second term, both citizens and noncitizens, and scores more have died in immigration detention. No agents have faced charges for any of these deaths. The agents involved in Salgado Araujo\u2019s killing didn\u2019t even have dashboard cameras or body cameras, a convenient oversight that a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson blamed on \u201cmultiple government shutdowns.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPues, Dios sabe que todo se paga en la vida<\/em>,\u201d my dad responded. Well, God knows you reap what you sow.<\/p>\n

Nothing can bring Lorenzo Salgado Araujo back to his loved ones. But I hope they find solace in his namesake, St. Lawrence. Tradition has it that Roman authorities roasted the Spanish deacon to death after Emperor Valerian demanded that he turn over the treasures of the Church. Instead, Lawrence presented the emperor with the city\u2019s poor and maligned, insisting that he confront the oppression he had forced on them.<\/p>\n

May we remember Lorenzo Salgado Araujo as a modern-day martyr, killed because our government refused to give him and so many others a chance at living in this country without fear.<\/p>\n

May his name resonate through the ages as embodying the promise and tragedy of the American dream.<\/p>\n

Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. \u00a92026 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Harriette Cole: My parents don\u2019t understand how hard I work<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May we remember Lorenzo Salgado Araujo as a modern-day martyr, killed because our government refused to give him a chance at living in this country without fear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nArellano: Two Lorenzos from Mexico. One fulfilled his American dream. 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