The young man still faces immigration proceedings that could lead to his deportation
The Portuguese man shot last December by agents of the United States immigration service during an inspection operation, on the outskirts of Baltimore, pleaded guilty and was convicted of destroying Government property, US authorities announced.
In a statement released on Monday, the United States Department of Justice indicated that “a 30-year-old illegal immigrant from Portugal” “pleaded guilty and received a federal sentence for destroying Government property.”
Judge Charles Austin sentenced the Portuguese man to a prison sentence of 103 days in detention, however “already served” while awaiting trial.
The immigrant was convicted of “using his van to collide with government vehicles while trying to escape immigration agents”.
The magistrate also ordered the Portuguese man, who ended up being shot by immigration agents during the operation, to pay compensation worth one thousand dollars (854 euros).
The charges of resisting, opposing, obstructing or interfering with federal agents were dropped following a plea agreement regarding the federal charge, CBS News reported this Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors pressed for the Portuguese man to serve up to six months in prison for endangering federal agents, but his lawyers asked the judge to sentence him to the time already served, as no one else was injured, according to the local press.
The young man still faces immigration proceedings that could lead to his deportation.
According to the guilty plea now released by authorities, on December 24, 2025, ICE agents carried out a traffic stop on the Portuguese man’s vehicle.
The agents surrounded the immigrant’s vehicle and ordered him to get out of the vehicle, which he refused to comply with, according to the official statement from the Department of Justice.
Afterwards, the police broke the glass of the driver’s door and tried to remove the Portuguese man by force.
In response, the immigrant tried to flee with his van and collided with the agents’ vehicles, causing damage to them.
At the time, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that federal agents approached a van with two undocumented men in the city of Glen Burnie, in Anne Arundel County.
The Portuguese man and the other passenger in the van were hospitalized, in a stable condition.
“I was scared. I saw guns. I wasn’t sure if they were from the police or from immigration,” the Portuguese man said in court on Monday, according to local newspaper The Baltimore Banner.
“I thought I was going to die,” he added.
According to court records, the damage caused to the immigration agents’ vehicles totaled 17 thousand dollars (around 15 thousand euros).
According to data from immigration services, the Portuguese arrived in the United States in 2008 and attended high school in New Jersey before moving to the Baltimore region in 2020.
He worked in several professions, bought a house and was taking steps to become a US citizen, according to court documents cited by CBS News.
“This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a national initiative that mobilizes the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, and protect our communities from perpetrators of violent crimes,” says the statement released by the Department of Justice.
