Washington, Oct 29 (IANS) Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and fellow Democrat Jamie Raskin on Thursday demanded personnel and disciplinary records of federal officers involved in immigration-enforcement shootings, setting a November 10 deadline for the Trump administration to respond.
Their letter seeks information about officers’ service histories, complaints, criminal and civil court records, involvement in other shootings and any training or disciplinary measures imposed after they fired their weapons.
The request was addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director David Venturella and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott.
Jayapal’s office said the demand followed concerns about officers’ conduct before and after shootings, including allegations that some had misrepresented events or boasted about using lethal force.
The lawmakers said DHS agents had shot at least 25 people since President Donald Trump returned to office, killing six, including three US citizens. These are figures cited by the lawmakers, not an independently verified government tally.
They argued that the scale of federal funding for immigration enforcement made disclosure of officers’ backgrounds and conduct a matter of public accountability.
“It owes the taxpayers and this Congress transparency and accountability for what it is doing with our money,” they wrote.
Among the specific questions, Jayapal and Raskin asked whether officers involved in shootings were currently on leave and what additional training or disciplinary action followed each incident.
The letter is an information demand by two Democratic lawmakers. It does not itself establish misconduct or announce disciplinary findings against the officers concerned.
One case highlighted by Jayapal’s office involved Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman shot five times by a Border Patrol agent.
An ABC News visual investigation published in February reported that body-camera and surveillance footage appeared to contradict elements of DHS’s initial account. The department had said agents fired defensively after their vehicle was rammed and surrounded.
ABC reported that the footage did not show a driver ramming the agents’ vehicle. It also reported that a judge dismissed the criminal case against Martinez after the Justice Department sought its dismissal.
In a response reported by ABC at the time, CBP said the officer had been placed on administrative leave. The agency said significant uses of force were investigated and reviewed, including by a board comprising senior CBP officials and representatives from DHS and the Justice Department. That statement concerned the Martinez incident, rather than Thursday’s congressional letter.
No public DHS response to the new request was located in the material reviewed for this report.
The demand follows an October 15 Democratic field hearing in Austin on immigration-agent shootings in Texas. Jayapal participated alongside Congressman Greg Casar, Homeland Security Committee ranking Democrat Bennie Thompson and other House members. Witnesses included legal advocates and the mother of a man killed in a shooting.
Jayapal, who was born in India and moved to the United States at 16 to attend college, represents Washington state’s 7th Congressional District.
She is the first South Asian-American woman elected to the House and serves as the senior Democrat on its immigration oversight subcommittee. Raskin is the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
–IANS
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