About 60 people lined the edge of Children’s Park or stood at the corner of First and Main streets this evening to protest two killings by federal immigration agents in less than a week.
Johan Sebastian Guerrero was killed the morning of July 13 in Biddeford, Maine, and that shooting followed one that killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas. In cities across the nation, people gathered in vigils while the Trump administration ordered ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) to halt most vehicle stops, the New York Times reports.
Sebastian Guerrero was a Colombian immigrant who was authorized to work in this country and was driving to his workplace when he was killed. Days earlier, on July 7, an ICE agent fatally shot Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant who had lived in this country for decades.
Jennifer Teague of Chico said she showed up for what was termed a “Vigil for the Victims” because she wanted to protest the “atrocities happening in our country.”
Teague said immigration agents are “unqualified” and are “terrorizing immigrants and people of color.”
At a vigil for Salgado Araujo in Houston, a statement from his son was read, according to reporting by American Community Media.
“He did not deserve to die,” the statement said. “He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE.’ He deserved to live a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — a husband, a father and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream.”
Leslie Layton is editor of ChicoSol.