Washington DC — In response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) fatal shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Guerrero, racial justice and movement lawyering nonprofit Advancement Project’s Interim Executive Director Carmen Daugherty issued the following statement:
“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Guerrero should be alive today. They are two fathers whose lives were violently ripped away from their families and communities in deadly shootings at the hands of ICE just this past week. It is clear that ICE’s murders are not isolated incidents, but a clear mandate to racially profile communities of color and shoot without consequence. As ICE continues its state-sanctioned persecution of Black and brown people, regardless of immigration status, we must underscore that this is a moral crisis that deserves urgent action.
“This presidential administration’s deportation agenda is smeared in blood, violence and death and is a disgrace. ICE does not make us safe. We must abolish ICE. Its violence is part of a broader system of policing and state occupation that treats Black and brown communities as targets for surveillance, raids, detention, displacement, and death. In the face of this racist regime, we must come together to support, protect, and demand safety for our neighbors who are targeted and indiscriminately murdered by federal immigration agents and police. We honor the lives stolen by the militarized ICE enforcement, and we are in solidarity with communities nationwide calling for ICE to be removed from our communities and eliminated altogether. We also call for transparency, accountability, and support for those who are impacted.”