Bishop Daniel E. Garcia of Austin and Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, both in Texas, issued a joint pastoral reflection on July 20 responding to four deaths and injuries that occurred during Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in mid-July under the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge.
Garcia chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion of Racial Justice and Reconciliation, while Cahill leads the bishops’ Committee on Migration. Their statement addressed a series of incidents spanning two weeks that resulted in civilian deaths and raised questions about the use of force during immigration enforcement actions.
The Deaths and Disputed Circumstances
On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national who had lived in the United States for approximately 35 years, was fatally shot by ICE agents during a traffic stop as he drove to work in the Houston area. Salgado was in the process of obtaining legal authorization to remain in the country and was not the intended target of the enforcement operation. ICE claimed that Salgado attempted to ram a vehicle; Houston law enforcement later disputed that characterization.
On July 14, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national, was shot and killed by ICE agents near a laundromat. A week later, on July 15, Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán, a 28-year-old Mexican man, was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer while fleeing from ICE and Department of Homeland Security agents in St. Augustine, Florida.
On July 16, a GEO Group employee at the Aurora processing center fired on a protester, injuring the woman’s foot. The Trump administration temporarily halted ICE traffic stops following the deaths but later resumed the operations.
The Bishops’ Response
The bishops grounded their response in Catholic anthropology and prior magisterial teaching. “As Catholics, we believe that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God and, therefore, grieve all situations where human life is brought to an unnatural end,” they wrote.
They emphasized that human dignity cannot be conditional or context-dependent. “Acts that diminish or disregard the dignity of any person or group of people should never be normalized in our society,” they stated, appealing to Catholics and fellow citizens alike to resist acceptance of such conduct as routine.
The bishops cited the USCCB’s 2018 pastoral letter on racism, “Open Wide Our Hearts,” which frames racial and ethnic justice through the lens of human dignity. They also referenced the bishops’ November 2025 pastoral message on immigration, positioning the current deaths within a broader Catholic perspective on migrant rights and protections.
Context and Teaching
The statement reflects longstanding Catholic social teaching on the dignity of the human person, a foundational principle of Catholic social doctrine. The bishops did not call for the cessation of immigration enforcement but instead demanded that enforcement operations uphold the fundamental worth of every person involved, including those targeted and those conducting operations.
Their intervention comes as the nation debates the balance between immigration enforcement and humanitarian protections, and as law enforcement agencies face renewed scrutiny over the use of force. The bishops’ framing — rooted in theological principle rather than partisan politics — appeals to a standard beyond policy preference: the non-negotiable dignity that attaches to every human being regardless of immigration status.