ICE Killed Another American Citizen Last Year, but No One Reported It
Add another name to the memorial of U.S. citizens who have lost their lives to federal immigration agents during the second Trump administration’s ongoing campaign of deportation brutality: Texas resident Ruben Ray Martinez, 23 years old. It’s a name that, by all rights, we should have known for almost a year at this point, as Martinez was killed in a shooting at a traffic stop on March 15, 2025. But the identity of his shooter, which has turned out to be an agent of ICE, remained unknown until now, following Freedom of Information Act requests from nonpartisan watchdog organization American Oversight that turned up internal ICE records, and an article in Newsweek. Martinez joins Minnesota’s Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti as the third American citizen demonstrably killed on the street by federal agents … the third that we know of. What this case reveals more than anything is the threat of how many more unknown deaths may be linked to federal agents than we realize.
Like Renee Good, Ruben Ray Martinez was behind the wheel of his car when he died. And indeed, it’s hard to look past some of the similarities in the law enforcement description of the fatal incident. We must keep in mind in this case, however, that we have only the law enforcement account to go on—to date, no known video or bystander/witness accounts have emerged on this shooting. And we know full well that we can’t trust the law enforcement story verbatim, any more than we can trust DHS to not release digitally altered photos of a suspect. Still, at the moment it’s all we have.
DHS successfully—until now—covered up the murder of a third US citizen on Texas’ Padre Island, the sort of thing that can only happen in GOP-ruled Texas. ICE agents shot and killed Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, last year, but DHS covered up the whole incident, Newsweek reports.
— Scott Horton (@robertscotthorton.bsky.social) Feb 19, 2026 at 12:53 PM
Early on the morning of March 15, 2025, a specialized ICE unit known as the HSI Harlingen BEST Maritime Group was providing assistance with traffic control to the South Padre Island Police Department, on a small barrier island off the Texas coast, near the border of Mexico. According to ICE’s own report, HSI agents were assisting with redirecting traffic after a major vehicle collision, when a car driven by Ruben Ray Martinez approached the scene.
“As the vehicle got closer to the special agents the driver failed to follow instructions and attempted to continue onto [redacted],” reads the report, according to Newsweek. “Multiple officers gave verbal commands to the occupants to stop, the driver of the vehicle slowed to a stop, and at this point agents surrounded the vehicle and verbally commanded the driver to exit the vehicle. The driver accelerated forward, striking a HSI special agent who wound up on the hood of the vehicle. Upon observing this, HSI group supervisory special agent utilized his government-issued service weapon, discharging multiple rounds at the driver through the open driver’s side window.”
Eerily similar to the description of Renee Good’s shooting, is it not? Like Good, Martinez is accused of attempting to run a federal agent down with his car, in this case with the person having supposedly “wound up on the hood of the vehicle.” That agent was “taken to a nearby hospital, treated for a knee injury and released,” by the way. Martinez was then executed by the federal agents, like Good, via shots fired through the side window of his car. Ruben Ray Martinez was transported to Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville, Texas, where he was pronounced dead, while an unnamed passenger who was in the car with him (imagine how traumatic that must have been) was reportedly taken into custody and presumably released.
The death of Ruben Ray Martinez was reported in local media at the time, and you can find elements online such as his local memorial, but what escaped reporting was the presence of ICE agents, or the fact that it was they that fired the deadly shots. And it certainly seems like DHS was all too happy to let its involvement here remain unknown, which begs the question: How many other fatal police shootings in the United States (more than 1,300 in 2025) also involved ICE agents in the last year? Did DHS investigate the immigration agent’s use of force in this case? Why did this incident involving the shooting death of a U.S. citizen not result in a press release being generated by the Department of Homeland Security like other, similar cases involving ICE? Could it be that DHS was hoping this one could just slip under the radar?
His name was “Ruben Ray Martinez” & was shot by an ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officer in South Padre Island, Texas, on March 15, 2025.
Martinez’s death reports did not identify HSI involvement or disclose that a federal agent fired the shots through the driver-side window.
RIP ????????
— Hope ☄️ (NO DMS!) (@xtrahope1515.bsky.social) Feb 19, 2026 at 9:14 PM
The shooting death of Ruben Ray Martinez is reportedly still under “active investigation” a year later by the Texas Rangers. Slightly oddly, Newsweek secured a quote from the office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom of all people, commenting on the killing as he clearly readies his presidential aspirations for 2028. It’s not clear why the governor of California’s comment is especially pertinent directly to the case, but at least it might help direct a bit more attention to a shooting by federal agents that has managed to go unreported for so long.
“While we don’t know all the facts of this case, it is clear that transparency and accountability are vital, especially when deadly force is used,” said the statement from Diana Crofts-Pelayo, Deputy Director of Communications for Newsom. “The nearly year-long delay in disclosing this incident is deeply concerning and suggests the public is unaware of the extent of DHS abuses and rising use of force in immigration enforcement. Americans deserve timely disclosure, real oversight, and clear accountability when force is used in their name.”