1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

Ruben Ray Martinez was 23 years old. He drove to South Padre Island, Texas, 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-side window and died at a hospital in Brownsville. The public didn’t find out a federal agent pulled the trigger until this week, eleven months later, when the watchdog group American Oversight released internal ICE documents through a FOIA lawsuit. A Texas Ranger investigator told Ruben’s mother 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. “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 when he was killed. This is part of 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 Trump administration’s initial account was contradicted by video evidence. The same dispute is unfolding in Texas. The agents who shot Ruben Martinez were originally assigned to 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. We urge you to demand a full congressional investigation into the shooting death of Ruben Ray Martinez and the eleven-month concealment of federal involvement in his death. Require DHS to release all body camera footage, internal communications, and use-of-force documentation related to this case. Push for mandatory body camera requirements and public use-of-force reporting standards for all ICE and CBP agents. No American should be killed by their own government and have that fact hidden for nearly a year. Congress has oversight authority over these agencies. Use it.