The United States remains overwhelmed by the violence unleashed by the . In addition to the arrests and deportations of migrants, tension has risen due to the death of two North American citizens, not foreigners without papers, civilians shot when they were protesting the policies of . These are Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good.
But now it has become known that they are not the only full citizens, with a North American passport, murdered by ICE. There is one more case, almost a year old, which according to him has been hidden.
This is the death of a 23-year-old American citizen, killed by shots fired by an agent of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service, last year, in Texas, as revealed by internal agency documents cited by media such as .
His name was Rubén Ray Martínez and he was hit multiple times in the early hours of March 15, 2025, while driving through a traffic stop on South Padre Island. Apparently, an ICE agent shot the young American after not obeying orders to get out of his vehicle.
At the time of death, it was reported that law enforcement officers had shot Martínez, but they never identified that the shooter belonged to ICE.
Charles Stam, lawyer for the Martínez family, has confirmed to the newspaper that his client was the victim mentioned in the ICE report revealed last week, after pressure for the death of two other US citizens in Minneapolis. Martínez is, then, the first US citizen killed at the hands of an immigration agent.
His case would mean that there have been at least six fatal shootings by federal agents since President Trump’s coast-to-coast immigration offensive in .
A citizen is detained by federal agents after being taken from her car, days after an ICE agent shot Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, on January 13, 2026.
The facts
ICE documents indicate that immigration agency agents helped the South Padre Island Police Department control traffic in the area, located in southern Texas, just 10 kilometers from the border with Mexico.
The police report indicates that Martínez did not follow the officers’ instructions, but eventually slowed down to a stop after receiving verbal commands.
The agents surrounded the vehicle and ordered him to get out, but the young Hispanic man accelerated and ran over the federal agent, who fell on the roof of the vehicle, according to the documents cited by the New York newspaper.
Another officer fired several shots through the driver’s window, Martínez was taken to a hospital in Brownsville where he died.
Martinez’s close friend, Joshua Orta, provided a sworn statement to the family’s attorneys and said the car had been moving slowly and that Martinez did not intentionally hit an officer, contradicting key elements of the federal account. Orta, coincidentally, so the key witness in the case is lost.
Covered
US House Representative Joaquín Castro accused ICE and the Texas Department of Security (DPS) of covering up the death. “I demand a thorough investigation of this shooting, including the reasons for the eight-month cover-up,” the congressman said. “We demand the publication of any type of video evidence,” he insists, “that would help clarify this. There are a few things. First, if the evidence was clear in their favor, I think they would have published it by now.”
“It is disturbing to think that the Trump Administration could have covered up the death of an American citizen at the hands of a federal agent for almost a year,” adds Arizona Democratic Senator Rubén Gallego.
The Democratic state representative of Texas, Gina Hinojosa, candidate for governor in this year’s elections, said, for her part, that Security’s handling is “unacceptable” and “alarming.” “This is a cover-up!” he complains, demanding that the withholding of information stop.
And what does the Trump Administration say? A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Newsweek that the idea that they concealed their involvement was “absurd”, stating that the incident was investigated by the FBI and the Office of Professional Responsibility, however. “Every use of force incident and any discharge of an ICE firearm must be reported and appropriately reviewed by the agency, in accordance with its policies, procedures and guidelines,” the spokesperson continued.
“All shootings are initially reviewed by the appropriate law enforcement agency. Following review of the incident by the appropriate investigative agency, ICE will conduct an independent review of the critical incident,” he says.
