Thursday, February 12, 2026
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Trump Live Updates: Bondi Faces Anger Over Epstein Files in Combative Hearing - The New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: Bondi Faces Lawmakers’ Anger Over Epstein Files in Combative Hearing
What We’re Covering Today
"Bondi Hearing: Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to apologize to survivors of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who attended her testimony at a lengthy House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Ms. Bondi faced anger from Democrats and at least one Republican, Thomas Massie, who criticized her handling of the release of files related to Mr. Epstein, including redaction errors that revealed the identities of victims. Read more ›
Netanyahu Meeting: President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel met for two and a half hours at the White House. Mr. Trump wrote on social media that “nothing definitive” was decided beyond a commitment to continue negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, which Israel considers an existential threat. Read more ›
Trump’s Tariffs: For a year, Republican leaders in the House have blocked challenges to Mr. Trump’s major trade strategy, tariffs, but dissent within the party has set up a vote to rescind the levies on Canada."
How ICE defies judges’ orders to release detainees, step by step
How ICE defies judges’ orders to release detainees, step by step
A POLITICO review reveals a pattern of ICE noncompliance with court orders to release detainees, causing frustration among judges nationwide. Even when complying, ICE delays releases, leaving detainees without belongings or proper coordination. Judges are increasingly frustrated with ICE’s actions, citing constitutional violations and unnecessary burdens on the court system.
A POLITICO review of hundreds of cases brought by ICE detainees shows a pattern of noncompliance that has frustrated judges across the country.
The Justice Department said in a statement that it is complying with court orders and enforcing federal immigration law: “If rogue judges followed the law in adjudicating cases and respected the Government’s obligation to properly prepare cases, there wouldn’t be an ‘overwhelming’ habeas caseload or concern over following orders.”
When detainees win release, ICE delays
The most acute concern from judges has been a recent surge of violations that occur after judges have ordered ICE to release people. In a growing number of cases, ICE has taken days or weeks to comply, sometimes requiring emergency motions by detainees’ lawyers and contempt threatsfrom judges.
“Detention without lawful authority is not just a technical defect, it is a constitutional injury that unfairly falls on the heads of those who have done nothing wrong to justify it,” U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell, a Biden appointee based in Minnesota, said during a hearing Tuesday. “The individuals affected are people. The overwhelming majority of the hundreds seen by this Court have been found to be lawfully present as of now in the country. They live in their communities. Some are separated from their families.”
The Justice Department has repeatedly cited failed efforts to communicate with their ICE counterparts to carry out court orders and the fact that they are drowning in habeas cases driven by the Trump administration’s mass deportation strategy. But the delayed releases also add to the burdens on the court system and lawyers for detainees.
Minnesota’s chief federal judge, Patrick Schiltz, cited these delayed releases in a public rebuke of the Trump administration’s conduct. The George W. Bush appointee had threatened to haul ICE chief Todd Lyons into court on Jan. 30, only to rescind the demand once the administration released a man he had ordered released a week earlier.
Detainees released without belongings, devices or documents
In recent days, judges in Minnesota have expressed frustration that even when complying with their orders, ICE has been doing so in bad faith. Detainees that the agency had whisked to Texas, for example, were being released far from home with no way to contact loved ones or lawyers, and sometimes without their phones, documents or other possessions.
U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, a Minnesota-based Clinton appointee, recently included a requirement that a released detainee should not be “left outside in dangerous cold” and emphasized that ICE should coordinate the release with a detainee’s lawyer to “ensure humane treatment.”
Frank recently required that if ICE ultimately released a detainee, they must do so: “(1) in Minnesota; (2) with all personal documents and belongings, such as his driver’s license, passport, other immigration documents, and cell phone; (3) without conditions such as ankle monitors or tracking devices; and (4) with all clothing and outerwear he was wearing at the time of detention, or other proper winter attire.”
Administration officials “may not shield their unlawful arrest of Petitioner by hiding behind an [immigration judge]’s conclusory, two-line determination of flight risk,” U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen, a New York-based Obama appointee, wrote in a Feb. 4 decision.
U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, an Obama appointee based in Charlotte, ruled Wednesday that a bond hearing he ordered in December turned out to be constitutionally deficient. The immigration judge in the case, he said, failed to permit the detainee to offer evidence in support of his release and relied on uncorroborated claims to support his continued detention.
Cogburn ordered a new bond hearing for the man, saying his original order had “presupposed that this hearing would be conducted in accordance with Petitioner’s due process rights. It was not.”
And U.S. District Judge John McConnell, an Obama appointee in Rhode Island, ordered a man freed Monday after concluding that two bond hearings conducted by immigration judges were constitutionally deficient — including one in which a judge ordered the man detained as a danger to the community over an uncorroborated report that the man drove 90-mph in a 55-mph zone.
Errors abound in habeas cases
Above all else has been a parade of mistakes: crucial attachments left off court filings or filled with incorrect information, claims that detainees are being housed in one state only to learn they were in another.
But the mistakes are at their most severe when they lead to deportations in violation of court orders. Judge Jill Parrish, the chief federal judge in Utah, recently confronted this when the administration acknowledged shuttling a man to Wyoming and deporting him to Mexico despite her order to block his immediate deportation.
“When a court exercises jurisdiction over a petitioner’s claims, Respondents may not ‘deport first, litigate later,’” the Obama appointee wrote.
It’s happened a handful of times in recent months. And the administration has, at times, facilitated their return to ensure they receive due process.
In another recent case, the Trump administration told a judge that a man seeking release from custody had been deported — when in fact he had not. Because of the administration’s representation, U.S. District Judge Kyle Dudek, a Florida-based Trump appointee, tossed his habeas case, saying it was moot.
“There is no live controversy left to adjudicate, and the Court is powerless to grant relief for a detention that has already ended,” Dudek wrote.
But on Thursday, Dudek rescinded his ruling.
“The Court dismissed this habeas action as moot on the representation that Petitioner was deported. That fact turned out to be untrue,” he wrote.
Judges increasingly lose patience with ICE
The incessant skirmishing between the courts and ICE has begun to wear on judges, who have made their fury known in increasingly pointed rulings and orders. They have, in some cases, personally rejected dozens of detentions as illegal and taken note as their colleagues around the country have done so in more than 3,000 cases — compared to just over 100 cases in which judges have sided with the mass detention strategy.
U.S. District Judge Jerry Edwards, Jr., a Biden appointee in Louisiana, said he was “fatigued” by the deluge. Chen, the New York-based Obama appointee, lamented “the toll Respondents have exacted on the judiciary by continuing to pursue their new mandatory detention policy, despite its near-universal rejection.”
But it was U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III, a George H.W. Bush appointee in Pennsylvania, who wrote most animatedly.
“These petitions are filed due to the illegal actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” he wrote. “Despite hundreds of similar rulings in this and other courts resoundingly in favor of the ICE-detainee petitioners, ICE continues to act contrary to law, to spend taxpayer money needlessly, and to waste the scarce resources of the judiciary.”
We Have to Look Right in the Face of What We Have Become
We Have to Look Right in the Face of What We Have Become
“The article highlights the need for public investigation and testimony regarding the violent tactics and disproportionate use of force by federal immigration agents. It draws parallels to historical examples like the Klan hearings and the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, emphasizing the power of words and personal experience in moving public opinion and prompting change. The author argues that any serious reckoning with the actions of the government must include recompense and repair for its victims.
On Oct. 4, Marimar Martinez, a teacher’s assistant in a Montessori school, was driving in Chicago when she observed federal immigration agents on patrol. She had begun to honk her horn to warn her neighbors about their presence when she collided with a Border Patrol vehicle. Moments later, the agent in the vehicle, Charles Exum, fired multiple shots into Martinez’s car, hitting her again and again. (Later, Exum would brag to colleagues that he had “fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes.”)
Prosecutors for the government charged Martinez with assaulting a federal officer and accused her of trying to ram Exum with her car. The Department of Homeland Security described her actions as domestic terrorism, a charge the agency would repeat after the death of Renee Good in January at the hands of another immigration agent.
The government’s case unraveled, however, when it became clear that its story did not fit the evidence — evidence that officials with Customs and Border Protection tried to hide. The government dropped its case against Martinez a month later, and last Friday a federal judge authorized the release of the body camera footage so that the public could see the incident for itself.
Recently, Martinez joined with other Americans brutalized by federal immigration agents to tell their stories to a forum of congressional Democrats led by Representative Robert Garcia of California and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Garcia and Blumenthal convened the event to collect testimony on — and highlight — “the violent tactics and disproportionate use of force by agents of the Department of Homeland Security.”
The people who testified spoke to the terror of their confrontations with masked, armed and often trigger-happy federal agents. “I will never forget the fear, and having to quickly duck my head as the shots were fired at the passenger side of the car. Any one of those bullets could have killed me or two people I love,” said Martin Daniel Rascon, who was stopped by agents who broke the windows of the vehicle he was in and began firing when the driver, frightened, tried to escape.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning.
If democracy rests on mutual recognition, on our capacity to see each other as full and equal persons, then the power to speak and be heard lies at the foundation of democratic life. It is when we speak — when we argue, appeal, explain and testify — that we put into practice our belief in the ability of others to understand, reason and empathize. Or as Thomas Jefferson remarked in 1824, “In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.”
Thus far, growing public opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection has been a function of the power of the image — of videos of shootings and abuse — but the testimony of Martinez, Rascon and others should remind us of the power of words and personal experience to also move the public. Crucially, there is the power inherent in giving victims of wrongdoing a chance to tell their stories, not as one perspective among many but as part of the official record.
Two examples of this dynamic stand out in American history.
In 1871, Congress convened the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Conditions of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, better known as “the Klan hearings,” on account of its focus: vigilante violence against the formerly enslaved. The committee, the historian Kidada E. Williams writes in “I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction,” “traveled to hot spots of southern disorder, where they solicited testimony from officeholders, voters, accused participants and their victims.” Overall, the hearings “yielded thirteen volumes of firsthand testimonies, including from Black victims.” Hundreds of Black men and women spoke of terror, intimidation, wanton killings and sexual violence. “African Americans,” Williams writes, “told their stories of world-unraveling violence and asked federal officials and their fellow citizens to respect their rights.”
A little more than a century later, in 1980, Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, an official federal investigation into the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The commission held 20 days of hearings in cities across the country and heard testimony from more than 750 witnesses, many of them on the West Coast, including “evacuees, former government officials, public figures, interested citizens and historians.” The evacuees, or rather victims, spoke in their testimony to deep feelings of injustice and a powerful sense that the federal government had robbed them of their dignity. “We took whatever we could carry,” said one person interned as a child. “So much we left behind, but the most valuable thing I lost was my freedom.” Victims also spoke about conditions in the camps that should sound familiar to anyone who has read recent accounts about ICE detention facilities. “The garbage cans were overflowing, human excreta was found next to the doors of the cabins and the drainage boxes into which dishwater and kitchen waste was to be placed were filthy beyond description.”
The public attention associated with the Klan hearings helped suppress anti-black vigilante violence in the South, but only for a time. Ultimately, the hearings did not produce the kind of legislation or federal effort that would have secured the promise of equal citizenship for the formerly enslaved. The more recent commission and hearings on Japanese internment, on the other hand, did lead to congressional action, and in 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed a law that acknowledged and apologized for the injustice of internment, which gave reparations to surviving internees or their heirs.
In her book, Williams observes that
Societies experiencing atrocities struggle to put a stop to and then meaningfully address them. Perpetrators want to advance their aims to the end and propagate baseless lies to do it. Victims want violence to stop, and they want justice. A small cadre of observers believes in justice and accountability. The rest, especially those who are safe from being targeted, and atrocities’ passive beneficiaries, simply want to move on and wipe the historical slate clean.
This was true of the violence suffered by Black Americans during Reconstruction. It has been true, in fact, for all manner of violence either committed or sanctioned by the federal government. But while the odds are somewhat against a serious reckoning with the brutality and wrongdoing of Trump’s mass deportation effort, it does not have to be true of the atrocities of ICE and the Border Patrol. If it is, it is because we made it so.
With that in mind, any serious push to account for the actions of this government — to abolish the president’s private army, restructure immigration enforcement and punish anyone responsible for wrongdoing — must include recompense and repair for its victims. And looking ahead to a Democratic-led House, or Senate or both, the first step in that journey must be more of the kind of public investigation and testimony we’ve already seen in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago and wherever else the administration has made its mark. The American people need to know the full story of what has been done in our name. And the people we’ve wronged deserve their chance to speak and be heard.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va.“
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Trump Administration Claims About Shootings by Federal Agents Unravel in Court - The New York Times
When Trump Officials’ Claims About Shootings Unravel in Court
"Before the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, allegations against four others shot at by federal immigration agents failed to withstand scrutiny.
By Alexandra Berzon and Allison McCann
The reporters reviewed court records, police reports and videos and interviewed people who were shot at by federal immigration agents over the last year.
The Trump administration was quick to pin the blame.
Days after a federal immigration agent shot at Phillip Brown, a U.S. citizen, last October at a busy commercial intersection in Washington, D.C., a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security claimed Mr. Brown had made a “deliberate attempt” to run officers down with his car. Mr. Brown, 33, was arrested, charged with a felony — fleeing from law enforcement — and spent three days in jail.
In court, however, the case against Mr. Brown quickly unraveled as a judge found that the government failed to present any evidence supporting its claims. The judge dismissed the charges and said the agent had fired his weapon “for reasons that are completely unclear to me.”
Mr. Brown’s case is among the 16 shootings by on-duty federal immigration agents patrolling in U.S. cities and towns over the past year, including those that took the lives of Minnesota protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
The Trump administration’s rush to declare Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti at fault for instigating violence was quickly undercut by a barrage of viral videos. But a New York Times review of the other shootings found that similar claims by officials fell apart more quietly when the cases went to court.
In four of the shootings where prosecutors brought assault or other charges, including against Mr. Brown, the cases fizzled after evidence emerged that contradicted the administration’s initial description of events. The charges were either dismissed or prosecutors dropped the case.
Charges against six other people who were shot at by immigration agents are pending. Five of the defendants have denied aspects of the D.H.S. accusations or presented differing accounts in court. Two cases are going to trial in April.
Tricia McLaughlin, a D.H.S. spokeswoman, stood by past statements in which she and the agency blamed people shot by officers, including labeling some of them “domestic terrorists.”
“We work every day to give the American people swift, accurate information on evolving, challenging law enforcement operations as federal law enforcement officers are facing a highly coordinated campaign of violence against them,” Ms. McLaughlin said.
She also defended the charges that have been brought by the government after violent encounters.
“Assaulting and obstructing law enforcement are felonies and federal crimes,” she said, adding that anyone “who assaults or obstructs law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Ms. McLaughlin referred questions about the four cases where charges were brought and later dropped or dismissed to the Justice Department, which declined to comment.
Shootings by immigration agents
Many people who were shot at have faced felony charges. Several cases have been dismissed, while others have not yet gone to trial.
Note: Data includes all shootings involving on-duty federal immigration agents that occurred in the interior of the U.S. in the last year. ICE includes agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
While the administration has been quick to investigate those who were shot or fired upon, there are only two cases in which civil rights or criminal investigations into the officers’ conduct have been announced.
The two officers who shot Mr. Pretti were placed on leave. D.H.S. declined to say whether officers involved in any of the other shootings have been disciplined or suspended from their duties.
It is not unheard-of for prosecutors to bring assault charges against people shot by federal law enforcement, especially after incidents that involve people brandishing weapons or directly striking officers. But lawyers who investigate police misconduct said that consistently filing charges against people who are shot by officers can be a sign of abusive practices.
“It’s a way to discredit individuals and tip the scales so that the use of force seems more reasonable from the outset,” said Christy Lopez, a Georgetown University law professor who led such investigations at the Justice Department during the Obama administration.
“When you look at cases and it doesn’t seem like the charges are valid or that many are quickly dismissed, it’s definitely a red flag that they are misusing criminal charges,” she added.
These are the four cases that fell apart in court:
Francisco Longoria
Around 8:45 a.m. on Aug. 16, Francisco Longoria was driving a pickup truck in San Bernardino, Calif., after making a delivery for his party supply rental business when he was directed to pull over by officers in unmarked cars.
He refused demands to roll down his window. Within about 30 seconds of the officers approaching his car, they began smashing both front windows, according to videos of the incident.
As Mr. Longoria peeled away, an officer shot at the truck. A surveillance camera at a nearby business captured the encounter; Mr. Longoria’s son and his daughter’s fiancé, who were in the pickup with him, also filmed it on their cellphones.
Within a day, D.H.S. had issued a statement saying that Border Patrol officers had been injured during “a targeted enforcement operation” when Mr. Longoria “attempted to run them down with his car.” Calling him a “suspect,” the statement said he “drove directly at the officers” and then fled.
Nearly two weeks later, a team of agents went to Mr. Longoria’s house around 4 a.m. to arrest him. The agents broke the locks on the doors and aimed assault rifles at the people inside, family members later recounted. Officers detained Mr. Longoria and charged him with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, a crime that can carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
But when prosecutors took the case to court, they were unable to support the D.H.S. description of events.
Mr. Longoria, who is originally from Mexico and had been living in the United States for more than two decades without legal status, was not said to be the subject of a specific immigration enforcement action targeting him. Instead, court records show, federal immigration agents were conducting what Cory Burleson, a Justice Department lawyer, called a “compliance check.”
Mr. Burleson also said that he knew of no evidence showing that officers had been hurt during their interaction with Mr. Longoria. “I’m not aware of any injuries,” Mr. Burleson said at the hearing.
After viewing the video filmed from inside the truck, U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel Richlin said he could understand how, from Mr. Longoria’s perspective, “it’s quite scary.” Judge Richlin also questioned why Mr. Longoria was being pulled over. “I don’t see an allegation that there was a lawful basis to stop the vehicle,” he said.
On Sept. 17, a month after Mr. Longoria was pulled over, the government withdrew its case. Mr. Longoria remained in an immigration detention center until December, when a judge ordered him released on bond.
Marimar Martinez
The government also backed away from its case against Marimar Martinez, 31, a U.S. citizen who was shot by federal agents during an Oct. 4 encounter in Chicago and accused by the Trump administration of trying to attack the officers.
Federal immigration agents had been patrolling in Chicago for over a month as part of Operation Midway Blitz when Ms. Martinez saw a silver Chevrolet S.U.V. that she assumed belonged to immigration agents. She began following the S.U.V., honking her horn and shouting, according to footage she live-streamed on Facebook at the time. After several minutes, other motorists started following the S.U.V., too.
Ms. Martinez’s car collided with the S.U.V. Moments later, a Border Patrol agent stopped his vehicle, climbed out and fired five shots. She was struck by multiple bullets.
Later that day, in a statement posted on the D.H.S. website, Ms. McLaughlin said Ms. Martinez and another motorist had “rammed federal agents with their vehicles.” She also called them “domestic terrorists” and said that Ms. Martinez had a gun in her car. Both were charged with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
In court, the facts were not so clear.
The agent who shot Ms. Martinez, Charles Exum, described the collision differently than Ms. McLaughlin had: “So this was side to side,” he testified. “So I would describe it more of, I guess you’d say hit and not rammed.”
Text messages that emerged in court proceedings appeared to show Mr. Exum bragging about shooting Ms Martinez. “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys,” Mr. Exum wrote in a group message with other agents.
Mr. Exum drove the S.U.V. to his home in Maine, which Ms. Martinez’s legal team said raised concerns about the preservation of evidence. When reached by phone for comment, Mr. Exum hung up.
Ms. Martinez had a permit for the handgun. The government’s lawyers said in court that the firearm was not visible to the agents, and that Ms. Martinez did not brandish the weapon during the encounter.
In November, federal prosecutors moved to dismiss the indictment against Ms. Martinez and the other motorist. Government lawyers told a judge in January that there was an open criminal investigation into Mr. Exum.
Despite the dismissed charges, D.H.S. has continued to call Ms. Martinez a “domestic terrorist.” At a congressional hearing last Tuesday, Ms. Martinez said she wanted to hear the administration apologize. “Just a ‘Sorry, you’re not a domestic terrorist. We were wrong,’” she said. “A simple sorry. That’s all I want.”
Phillip Brown
On the night he was shot at, Mr. Brown, a father of three, was on his way to his cousin’s house in Northwest Washington to catch some of the night’s N.B.A. games. He did not realize that he had driven into a joint operation between the local police and federal agents aimed at fighting crime in the capital.
Two D.C. police officers and two federal agents had decided to pull him over for a missing front license plate and “heavily” tinted windows, according to the arrest report.
In court, a D.C. police officer later testified that he had heard Mr. Brown’s engine rev and then come to a stop after colliding with a motorist in front of him, followed by the sound of gunshots. No officers were positioned in front of Mr. Brown’s car, he testified, and he made no mention of Mr. Brown driving at any of them.
The shots had been fired by an agent from Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of ICE. The agent had jumped out of the moving police car and fired at least three times at Mr. Brown. Two bullets struck the front passenger seat. One grazed the top collar of his jacket.
“When it finally got quiet and I realized it was cops shooting at me, I asked them, ‘What is all of this for?’” Mr. Brown said in an interview. “They were looking around and saying, “We’re trying to figure that out.’ And I’m like, ‘How do you not know why you just shot at me?’”
Although Mr. Brown was uninjured, he said he was still traumatized and angry about what happened.
“If I would’ve died, how many angles would they have tried to spin on me, to say I was the bad guy?” he said. “How are they able to draw weapons on U.S. citizens and not have no type of repercussions?”
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington said in an email that “there could be no prosecution” of the officer who fired at Mr. Brown “because no one was struck.”
Carlitos Ricardo Parias
The statement from Ms. McLaughlin made it sound as if the government’s case against Carlitos Ricardo Parias would be open-and-shut.
Mr. Parias, 44, had entered the country from Mexico more than 20 years ago without authorization. He built a following as a social media content creator under the name Richard LA and had posted about the presence of immigration agents in Los Angeles. In June, he was briefly handcuffed by ICE agents and then let go, video of the encounter shows.
A few months later, on Oct. 21, ICE agents again tried to arrest him while he was driving in Los Angeles. The agents smashed his car windows, and one agent shot him. He was taken to the hospital, where he had surgery and was detained.
In a statement later that day, Ms. McLaughlin said Mr. Parias had “weaponized his vehicle and began ramming the law enforcement vehicle in an attempt to flee.” The officer had fired “defensive shots” because he “feared for the safety of the public and law enforcement,” she said. Mr. Parias was charged with assaulting a federal officer.
Then the case went to court, and the evidence revealed a different story.
An officer’s body-worn camera footage showed that Mr. Parias’s car had been boxed in by vehicles driven by the federal officers. As he tried to maneuver his car away, several officers approached on foot and smashed the car’s front windows. An ICE officer aimed a gun through the passenger-side window at Mr. Parias, who held up his hands. The officer tried to open the passenger-side door, the video shows, and shifted the gun to his left hand, where it immediately went off, hitting Mr. Parias in the arm. The officer reacted with an expletive.
The F.B.I. conducted a use-of-force review, a government lawyer disclosed in court in December, but the outcome was unclear.
As the case against him proceeded, Mr. Parias was moved to a detention center in Adelanto, Calif., a couple of hours away. His lawyers have said he remained in severe pain from the gunshot wound and did not have access to medication except ibuprofen.
At the end of December, a judge dismissed the case against Mr. Parias, finding that the agency had detained him without ready access to his lawyer. The judge also noted that the government had delayed producing documents and other evidence as required, including submitting the body-camera footage after a court-imposed deadline. The Justice Department has appealed.
Mr. Parias remains in the detention center. Last month, a judge denied his request to be released.
Mr. Parias’s son, Ulises Parias, 19, said he had distraught conversations with his mother over how best to help his father.
“They’re basically free while they shot my dad,” Ulises Parias said. “How is that fair?”
Arijeta Lajka and Matt Schwartz contributed reporting. Georgia Gee contributed research.
Alexandra Berzon is an investigative reporter covering American politics and elections for The Times.
Allison McCann is a reporter and graphics editor at The Times who covers immigration."
Monday, February 09, 2026
Texas attorney general candidate says if he wins, he’d try to revoke Democratic leader Gene Wu’s citizenship
Texas attorney general candidate says if he wins, he’d try to revoke Democratic leader Gene Wu’s citizenship
“Texas Attorney General candidate Aaron Reitz suggested revoking the citizenship of Democratic leader Gene Wu, claiming Wu lied during his citizenship application. Reitz’s comments were made in response to a viral video clip of Wu discussing racial divisions and the potential for non-white communities to unite politically. Wu, who declined to comment, has faced similar accusations from Texas Republicans in the past.
Aaron Reitz, who is running for Texas attorney general, issued the threat after an interview of Wu was shared online of him discussing non-white voting strength.
Aaron Reitz, among the GOP candidates running to be Texas Attorney General, on Monday suggested without evidence that the leader of the Texas House Democrats, who is Asian, had lied during his citizenship application process and should have his citizenship revoked.
“As AG, I want to see [Rep. Gene Wu] de-naturalized,” he posted on X in a response to a 28-second clip of an interview of Wu talking years ago about racial divisions in the country.
The clipping, from a 2024 interview, instantly infuriated some Texas Republicans who accused Wu, a Houston Democrat, of being anti-White and racist, for his suggestion that non-white communities could come together to win elections in Texas once they realized “they share the same oppressor.”
Reitz is facing three others for the GOP nomination in the March 3 primary: state Sens. Joan Huffman of Houston and Mayes Middleton of Galveston as well as U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin. He appeared to be the only candidate offering to take action against Wu for his comments.
“On what basis? He likely concealed his anti-American sentiment throughout his citizenship app process—the details of which are conspicuously absent from the public record,” Reitz wrote on social media. “Wu is a subversive whose citizenship should be revoked.”
Through a spokesperson, Wu declined to comment.
Denaturalizations are historically rare, and under federal law, can only occur if someone committed fraud while applying for citizenship. The federal government can also denaturalize someone if they become affiliated with the Communist Party, or a terrorist organization within a few years of becoming a citizen.
President Donald Trump has increasingly pointed to denaturalizations as a means to increase his crackdown on immigrants. Last year, the administration issued guidance to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field offices,issuing monthly quotas for offices to initiate denaturalization cases.
The video clipping that went viral shows Wu talking about relationships between different immigrant communities. The entire interview, nearly 40 minutes long, features a conversation about Texas’ GOP leadership, life in Texas for immigrants and Wu’s own life, from when he migrated as a child from China with his family to seeing the Asian American community in Houston flourish.
“I always tell people the day the Latino, African American, Asian and other communities realize that they share the same oppressor is the day we start winning,” Wu says in the short clipping circulating social media. “We have the ability to take over this country and to do what is needed for everyone and to make things fair. But the problem is our communities are divided.”
The video was posted Saturday evening by an X account with nearly 4 million followers. A few hours later it was reposted by LibsofTikTok, the right wing disinformation account with almost 5 million followers.
By Monday morning, numerous Texas Republicans were outraged at Wu.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said the “Democrat party is built on bigotry.” Paxton calledWu a “radical racist who hates millions of Texans just because they’re white.”
Roy, in a heated primary contest against Reitz, said Wu should resign from his state House seat, a move other conservative influencers and commentators also encouraged.
“Unlike many Democrats, he admits his racism against white people and call to ‘take over this country,’” Roy wrote on social media. “He should resign or the TX House should strip him of any power.”
Bo French, the former Tarrant County GOP chair running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, referred to Wu as a “commie,” even as Wu has shared personal stories of how his family was the victim of the Chinese communist party.
Texas Republicans in the Capitol and beyond have for years baselessly accused Wu of similar offenses, and questioned his loyalty to the state and country. The criticism reached a new peak last summer when Wu and other House Democrats left the state to delay the passage of a new congressional map aimed to max GOP gains in the U.S. House.
Two lawsuits seeking to remove Wu from office for breaking quorum remain pending before the state’s supreme court.
At one point in the interview where the viral clip came from, Wu talks about how he sees all the residents in his district as Americans, regardless of their legal status. The journalist host then asks Wu about his biggest fears for Houston’s undocumented population during Trump’s second term, secured with promises of a historic deportation effort.
“It’s not just the fate of undocumented people. It’s the fate of all immigrants,” Wu responds, pointing to the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. “People say I’m not worried. I’m a citizen. … When the mass deportation begins, I promise you it will not just be illegal immigrants who are affected. It will be Americans.”
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)