HOUSTON– A Mexican national shot to death by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Houston had no criminal convictions during his decades living in the United States and was driving a team to a home construction site when he was killed, his family and a Texas congresswoman said Wednesday.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was working to obtain legal status in the United States and knew what to do if ICE detained him, his son said.

Federal officials said they were stopping the vehicle in an immigration enforcement operation. Ronaldo Salgado said his father may have feared that people in unmarked vehicles would come to steal the tools he had used for 35 years to build houses so he could send his three American children to college.

“He didn’t deserve to die. He didn’t deserve to be reduced to a headline of a Mexican man shot dead by ICE. He deserved to live a quiet life like Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, husband, father and job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream,” Salgado said during a press conference.

The shooting occurred Tuesday in Magnolia Park, a neighborhood that has been a center for Houston’s Mexican-American community for a century. On Wednesday night, hundreds of people marched through the neighborhood chanting “ICE Get Out of Houston!”

Salgado Araujo was shot after ignoring commands and trying to ram an officer who fired his weapon in self-defense, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday. ICE agents were pursuing him because he was living in the country without legal permission, according to the department that oversees ICE. The man’s car collided with an ICE vehicle, the department added.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said Salgado Araujo had no criminal convictions.

Houston firefighters said he was shot in the abdomen. He died in a hospital.

Three other men appeared to be detained while Salgado Araujo lay moaning on the ground, according to his son, who said one of them was his uncle.

Daniel Tirado was one of the other men in the van and briefly called his wife to tell her they were being followed, Tirado’s stepdaughter, Juana Degollado, told The Associated Press.

“What he remembers is that an ICE agent shot Lorenzo and the van door closed,” Degollado said.

Tirado was unable to contact her family until Wednesday morning and the call lasted only five minutes, her stepdaughter said. They have not been able to obtain additional information from ICE or the FBI.

José Rojas was also arrested, according to his stepdaughter Griselda Silva. The 51-year-old Mexican citizen had lived in the United States for decades without legal status or a criminal record, she said.

ICE has not released the names of those detained.

Federal officials have not released videos or images of the shooting or the vehicles. Salgado joined civil rights groups and Democratic officials on Tuesday in urging federal authorities to release all images and other information they have about the shooting.

In several other shootings involving federal agents, immigration officials’ initial descriptions have sometimes later been contradicted by video evidence.

Federal repression has created a country where agents believe they can “shoot and explain later,” said League of United Latin American Citizens president Román Palomares.

The league offered a $5,000 reward for information and video from witnesses. Ronaldo Salgado and several civil rights organizations called for an independent investigation. Some begged anyone with videos not to turn them over to ICE.

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said Salgado Araujo’s family and community deserve the truth, but federal authorities are solely in charge of the investigation.

Representatives from ICE and DHS did not respond to repeated requests for additional comment Wednesday.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin took over the department in March with the goal of keeping it clear of the controversies that marked the tenure of his predecessor, Kristi Noem.

The shooting was at least the eighth death resulting from an encounter with federal immigration agents since the start of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Ronaldo Salgado said his mother was told something bad had happened to his father around 7 a.m. Tuesday. After frantically searching for him at his workplace and finding his truck empty, she watched a video.

“I recognized him, not by his appearance but by his voice calling for help while he was lying on the street,” Salgado said.

Salgado Araujo met his wife when he was a teenager in Mexico. She made him lunch before he left for the day. He listened to music and petted his dog on his porch, Salgado said.

Salgado said his father had started the process to obtain his work permit.

“We dot every I, cross every T, fill out every document, keep every appointment,” Salgado said. “He was close to getting his legal status.”

Salgado Araujo had a biometric and fingerprint scan earlier this year and had carefully studied what to do if ICE detained him.

“If my father had seen an ICE emblem or an emblem that said something about a law enforcement agency, my father would have complied,” his son said.

On Wednesday night, a large crowd marched through the city streets, some waving Mexican flags or holding a banner that read “Abolish ICE,” while others carried signs with Salgado Araujo’s face.

The crowd left a few steps from the place where Salgado Araujo was shot and held an event in his memory and prayer. They also filmed a video for his family of the crowd shouting, “You’re not alone!” Garcia announced that she and other lawmakers sent a letter Wednesday to DHS demanding answers.

Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that the country is “preparing legal measures” for the murder of Salgado Araujo because “we cannot allow the mistreatment of our brothers and sisters in the United States.”

In April, Sheinbaum expressed concern about the deaths of Mexican citizens in immigration detention centers in the United States and said his government would support lawsuits brought by those detained over poor conditions or by the families of those who died. He raised the detainees’ deaths with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and said he was considering appealing to the United Nations.

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Brook reported from New Orleans and Collins from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press reporters Hallie Golden in Seattle; Gisela Salomón in Miami; Rebecca Santana in Washington, DC; and Ryan J. Foley in Omaha contributed.

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This story has been corrected to show that Sheinbaum’s comments about a possible approach to the UN were made in April.