Families of ICE victims tell panel that falsehoods, obstruction amount to ‘dual assassinations’

Highlighting the growing list of people killed by federal immigration agents, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree and other Democratic members of Congress on Tuesday heard from family members of those killed about the Trump administration’s pattern of obstruction and lies about the shootings and victims themselves.

The shadow hearing highlighted that despite new leadership at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, little has changed. 

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said that when Markwayne Mullin was tapped to replace Kristi Noem as DHS secretary, “There was hope that (ICE) would abandon the physical brutality and inhumanity of its tactics on the streets, there was hope that there would be accountability.”

That hope has been dashed, he said, most recently with the weekend shooting of a Venezuelan man in Austin, Texas.

California U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, ranking member of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, said that as of September 2026, Democrats on the committee have documented over 1,000 “credible and verified instances and abuses” under President Donald Trump’s second administration. According to the lawmakers, 20 people have been shot by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while 58 have died in ICE custody.

With a lack of subpoena power, Democrats do not have the ability to compel officials from the administration to testify. Instead, they’ve used this sort of forum, including one in Biddeford last month, to hear from willing witnesses. 

‘Dual assassinations’

The members of Congress heard from family members and other representatives of Ruben Ray Martinez and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo of Texas, Renée Good and Alex Pretti of Minnesota, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero of Maine.

The witnesses all described how, in addition to a complete lack of information and oversight after the shootings, the federal government spread falsehoods about the people killed. 

Sean Murphy, an attorney representing the Guerrero family, told the panel, “the dehumanization of the victims of these crimes is despicable.” 

“The patterns of dual assassinations — one of the body and then of the character — is disgusting, and there’s a pattern that if you’re not seeing it, it’s because you have your eyes closed,” Murphy said. 

Ronaldo Salgado and Lorenzo Salgado Jr., whose father was shot and killed in July while driving to work, said DHS provided little information about what led to the shooting but instead made repeated false claims that were later walked back, including that their father had been the target of the operation and had weaponized his vehicle.

“DHS also claimed there may have been drugs in the vehicle, which, if anyone who knew my father would tell you, is absurd, and which testing later proved to be false, as we all knew it would,” Lorenzo Salgado Jr. said.

Stella Carlson, a community activist who filmed the shooting of Pretti in Minneapolis, told the lawmakers that she felt like she “witnessed two assassinations, the first was the literal assasination of Alex and the second was the attempted assassination of his character.” 

Pretti, an ICU nurse for the Department of Veterans Affairs who was observing ICE activities in his community, was described by the Trump administration as a “domestic terrorist.”

“We observed his murder with our own eyes, and the truth does not become less true because someone with great power tells a louder lie,” Carlson said. “When people are killed, and when the public is given false accounts of what happened, there must be accountability.” 

ICE shot 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez in March 2025, making him the first U.S. citizen killed by ICE during the second Trump administration, though Blumenthal noted, “that fact was not disclosed to his family or to the public for nearly a year.”

His mother, Rachel Reyes, also told the panel about how video evidence and testimony from his lifelong best friend, who had been a passenger in the car at the time, contradicted the official account of the events that led to the shooting.

“Though the circumstances surrounding his death and these other victims are distinctly different, the pattern is the same: lives cut short by the same agency, agents without body cameras, no warnings, no attempt to de-escalate, excessive force followed by deflection and a lack of accountability after the fact,” Reyes said. “Other similarities are that these victims, despite being nonviolent community members with no criminal background, were disparaged and blamed to shift focus away from the officer’s misconduct.”

“What happened to my son is personal, but it should be a concern for us all,” she added. 

Like the other accounts, a changing official narrative was also the case in Maine with Guerrero’s shooting.

At first, Mullin told independent U.S. Sen. Angus King that Guerrero “weaponized” his vehicle before being shot by an ICE agent. But ICE later said he attempted to flee and “fearing for public safety” an agent shot him.

‘Radio silence’ on Biddeford shooting

Murphy also said that he recently learned from the Maine Attorney General’s Office, which is currently investigating the deadly use of force in the shooting, that bullets fired by federal agents “struck and pierced” the carseat of Guerrero’s 3-year-old daughter, who was not in the car at the time, though initial reports said she was. 

“The only justification given for Johan’s death was that it was in the interest of public safety. You know what actually keeps the public safe? Not shooting innocent and law-abiding fathers whose only dream is to build a better life for his family,” Murphy said. 

Murphy added that there’s been “radio silence” from the federal government and that “DHS has still refused to even identify the name of the shooter” as well as any of the other federal agents present at the shooting.

Pingree said, “So many questions remain, and his family deserves to know how this happened. His family, his community, and the state of Maine need to know who will be held accountable.”