ALSO SEE: Mexico Prepares Criminal Complaint in ICE Killing of Houston Man

Three men who were in the vehicle alongside Lorenzo Salgado Araujo are contesting the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the fatal shooting.

The three men who were arrested during an immigration operation that resulted in the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo said a federal officer fired at them almost immediately after exiting his vehicle and that at no point did the driver veer in his direction.

The migrants are disputing key elements of the Department of Homeland Security’s account of what transpired during a chaotic traffic stop in a predominantly Mexican American neighborhood in Houston on Tuesday. They spoke from immigration detention with attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, who shared their written and oral accounts with The Washington Post.

DHS released a statement hours after the deadly shooting saying that Salgado Araujo had rammed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle and “weaponized” his white work van “in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.”

“That is a lie,” wrote Jose Trinidad Rojas, 51, in a handwritten statement. “It is impossible for them to say that they were going to get run over … there were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides.”

Balderas-Ibarra spoke to Rojas, Daniel Tirado Pantoja, 43, and the shooting victim’s brother, Victor Salgado, 44, and said he heard the same story from each as he interviewed them separately. The men are not being housed together, the attorney said. All three are undocumented Mexican immigrants who are now facing removal proceedings.

“All of them reiterated that there were never any ICE agents in front of the van,” Balderas-Ibarra said. “They came in and started shooting from the sides.”

The incident has sparked fresh anger in one of the nation’s largest cities over the Trump administration’s deportation campaign. Salgado Araujo’s family said he was a father of three and a business owner who had lived in the United States as an undocumented immigrant for more than three decades and had no criminal record. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), who represents the district where the shooting took place, said in a television interview on Thursday that an ICE official told her that Salgado Araujo was not the intended target of the traffic stop.

Salgado Araujo’s death marks the first fatal shooting involving federal immigration agents since U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti were killed in separate incidents in Minneapolis in January during an enforcement surge in that city. ICE’s account of his killing echoed many of the statements the agency quickly issued in other shootings that resulted in fatalities or injuries to undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens. In several instances, however, video evidence and testimony from witnesses contradicted the agency’s initial accounts, establishing that the officers were not in danger and, in some cases, acted as the aggressors.

A Trump administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the ICE officers were not wearing body cameras during the traffic stop that resulted in Tuesday’s shooting.

The men who were in the van told Balderas-Ibarra that Tuesday had begun like any other morning as they headed to a construction site. They were traveling on Wayside Drive, headed toward Interstate 10, around 6:30 a.m. after buying ice and water. They pulled up to a stop light when an unmarked vehicle came up behind the van and started following them.

When the van accelerated as the light turned green, the unfamiliar vehicle pulled out onto the shoulder, accelerated and cut in front of Salgado Araujo, who was driving, and tapped on the brakes, the men said.

That’s when Salgado Araujo made a U-turn. At that point, officers turned on their police lights, according to the testimony they gave the attorney.

As the vehicle continued onto Canal Street, they proceeded slowly because of heavy construction on the roadway. The men told Balderas-Ibarra they were moving at no more than 5 mph on the road. They said ICE rammed their vehicles into the work van, but that at no point did Salgado Araujo use his vehicle to hit law enforcement’s cars.

At one point, there was an ICE vehicle on each side of the van, the men told the attorney.

“Lorenzo thought we had lost them but suddenly they surrounded us,” Rojas wrote by hand on a legal pad paper viewed by The Post.

An officer then jumped out of one of the vehicles, ran toward them from the side and yelled, “Stop!” He started firing from the passenger side of the van, hitting Salgado Araujo in the abdomen. Victor Salgado, the driver’s brother, said he felt the force of the firearm as the agent pointed his gun toward his brother.

“When he shot my brother, the gun was in front of my face,” read Balderas-Ibarra from his interview notes of his conversation with Salgado. The brother was sitting in the passenger seat when the agent pulled the trigger.

Salgado Araujo was able to stop the van and place it in park, the men said, but the officer or officers continued to unload additional rounds from the sides of the vehicle.

Rojas described the agents violently pulling Salgado Araujo out of the driver seat and throwing him to the ground. They put handcuffs on their wrists and feet.

Victor Salgado said his brother was yelling for help as he was bleeding out.

“It just happened so fast,” Salgado told the attorney.

The three men lay helpless as their boss lay dying.

“Se querían escapar, verdad?” Victor Salgado recalled an ICE agent saying to him in a mocking tone. He relayed that memory to Balderas-Ibarra. “You wanted to escape, right?”

Salgado Araujo later died of his injuries. He arrived at Ben Taub Hospital without any identification and was initially classified as a “John Doe,” according to Juan Proaño, chief executive of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

The three men in custody have all been in the country for more than two decades, living without documents and with no criminal record, Balderas-Ibarra said. Balderas-Ibarra is representing Tirado and Rojas and said both men have families and U.S. citizen children they support.

During the interviews, the attorney said the men were all bothered by news coverage of the agency’s version of what unfolded, which they watched on television inside the detention center.

“They’re good people who didn’t deserve this,” Balderas-Ibarra said. “They were cooperating and not resisting.”

Balderas-Ibarra, who is taking their cases pro bono, said he is focused on securing his clients’ release from the detention center and calling for an independent investigation.

“I believe the ICE agents are lying,” he said.