1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

Ruben Ray Martinez was 23 years old. He drove from San Antonio to South Padre Island for the first time for a birthday weekend with his best friend. He worked at an Amazon warehouse, liked video games, and had never had a run-in with law enforcement. On March 15, 2025, he pulled into a traffic scene where HSI agents from ICE were assisting local police with a car accident. He was shot three times through the driver's side window and died at a hospital in Brownsville. His mother, Rachel Reyes, found out a week later that a federal agent had pulled the trigger, not a local officer. The public didn’t learn that until this week—eleven months after the shooting—when the watchdog group American Oversight released internal ICE documents obtained through a FOIA lawsuit. ICE, DHS, and the Texas Department of Public Safety all remained silent about the federal involvement. A Texas Ranger investigator told Reyes there is video of the shooting that contradicts the federal account. Use-of-force expert Geoffrey Alpert of the University of South Carolina reviewed the case and was clear about it. “You don’t stand in front of the car,” he said. “You don’t put yourself in harm’s way.” Ruben’s attorneys say he was trying to follow instructions from local officers directing traffic when he was killed. Ruben Ray Martinez is the earliest known case in what has become a documented pattern. ICE use-of-force incidents jumped from 17 in the first two months of 2024 to 67 in the same period a year later, according to internal emails reviewed by Newsweek. In January 2026, in Minneapolis, Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed in her SUV by an ICE officer. Weeks later, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old critical care nurse and U.S. citizen, was killed by federal agents during the same enforcement operation. In both cases, the initial Trump administration account was contradicted by video evidence. The same dispute over facts is unfolding here. The HSI agents involved in the Martinez shooting were originally part of a maritime task force targeting criminal organizations at seaports. They had been reassigned to general immigration enforcement. No body camera footage was released, and no federal agency acknowledged its role for eleven months. When a government can kill a citizen, conceal it, and face no public accountability for nearly a year, the oversight system has completely broken down. Texas works with federal immigration enforcement and shares responsibility for what that enforcement produces on Texas soil. The Texas Rangers finished their investigation in October 2025. That report needs to be released to the public immediately. We urge you to demand its release and to press Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz to present this case to a grand jury without further delay. State Representative Ray Lopez has already invoked House Rule 4, Section 6A, to compel a hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Veterans’ Affairs. Support that hearing with full subpoena authority and independent legal counsel. Ruben Martinez’s mother has waited eleven months for answers. She is a Texas mother. His family is a Texas family. This state owes them the truth, and it’s time for answers.