North Texas advocates outraged over ICE enforcement deaths: "Life is too precious to treat us like trash"

North Texas advocates said a series of recent deaths tied to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the United States is reigniting concerns about the agency's tactics and their impact on immigrant communities.

For the past nine months, advocates with La Colectiva North Texas have been providing resources and guidance to undocumented immigrants outside of the Dallas ICE field office. 

But after three deadly encounters involving ICE enforcement in cities outside North Texas in recent days, advocates said that exhaustion has turned into anger.

"We're exhausted. I am tired," said Flaka Martinez, a La Colective volunteer. "I think at this point it has reached a level of grief and rage that I don't even think we treat dogs this bad in this country. It's enough, enough is enough. Life is too precious to treat us like trash."

Last week, an ICE agent in Houston shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. On Monday in Maine, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero died during an encounter with agents. Neither man was the intended target in those traffic stops targeting undocumented immigrants. And on Tuesday in Florida, a tractor-trailer struck and killed another man while running from ICE agents.

Martinez and advocates alike say that while not in the spotlight, ICE traffic stops and operations continue happening in North Texas, even when the public may not hear about it.

"We are unsurprised by these deaths because we have so many detentions happening in North Texas," said Rev. Eric Folkerth, with CLEAR DFW, also known as the Clergy League for Emergency Action and Response. "But it's done so silently."

According to federal data, the Dallas ICE sector leads the nation with more than 50,000 arrests since 2020. The agency couldn't immediately tell us how many stemmed from traffic stops.

Tuesday, ICE said it would suspend the controversial practice in the wake of the deadly shootings. But on Wednesday, President Trump urged ICE to resume with stops, saying: "We cannot give up one of ICE's most important and effective crime-fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!"

Advocates said the mixed messaging raises concerns.

"It's instilling this culture of fear, and that seems to be, again, by design, that seems to be the intention," said Faisal Al-Juburi, with RAICES, a non-profit which provides immigration legal aid & rights advocacy.

On Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott said Texas Rangers are going to be involved in an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of Salgado Araujo.

"The Texas Rangers are now going to be involved in an investigation of this matter, working alongside federal officials to get to the bottom of exactly what happened," Abbott said. "They're well known not just in the state of Texas, but elsewhere, for their independence in conducting investigations."

But advocates like Folkerth and Martinez said they'll continue fighting for immigrant communities.

"This chain of command issue is inconsistent, and it allows rogue agents to do whatever they want," Folkerth said.

"The fight continues, and good trouble is necessary for the next step, because as many people are saying, vigils are not enough," said Martinez.

Vigils are being held to remember the victims on Wednesday at Trinity Park in Fort Worth and on Saturday at City Hall in Dallas.

CBS News Texas will provide updates as more information becomes available.