Texas Lawmaker Forces Hearing on ICE Agent’s Fatal Texas Shooting of U.S. Citizen

A new CBS investigation reveals that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations agent fatally shot 23‑year‑old U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island, Texas, on March 15, 2025—an ICE role that was not disclosed publicly for nearly 11 months. Internal ICE documents, obtained by the American Oversight Project and first linked to Martinez by Newsweek, say agents were helping local police with late‑night traffic control after a serious crash when Martinez allegedly drove a blue Ford toward the scene, ignored commands, briefly stopped, then accelerated and struck an agent, who ended up on the hood; another agent then fired multiple rounds through an open side window, and Martinez died later at a Brownsville hospital. DHS confirmed the shooting to CBS, characterizing the driver as having "intentionally" run over an agent and calling the gunfire "defensive shots," while saying the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Ranger Division is investigating and declining further detail. In response, Democratic state Rep. Ray Lopez, vice chair of the Texas House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety and Veterans' Affairs, has invoked a newly adopted House rule—used publicly for the first time—to compel Republican Chair Cole Hefner to "promptly" schedule a public hearing on the killing and ICE’s conduct, demanding a written response by Feb. 23. The case adds to mounting scrutiny of opaque ICE shootings in Trump’s deportation crackdown, with civil‑rights advocates online seizing on the year‑long silence about ICE’s involvement as further evidence that federal agents can kill U.S. citizens with little public accountability until watchdogs pry records loose.