Shoot. Slander. Repeat.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has a well-established record of lying to the public.
When a masked federal agent attempts to kill an innocent member of the public, the first thing that the Trump administration does is tell shameless lies about the person who was subjected to a street-level execution.
A snow shovel or a broom handle or something like that: In January, these were the deadly weapons imprecisely identified as being in the hands of three "illegal aliens" in Minneapolis. The story, as told in a press release from the Department of Homeland Security, went that a pair of undocumented immigrants "ambushed and attacked" a federal immigration agent who was attempting to arrest Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan man who, during the altercation, "got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick."
"What we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a Jan. 15 statement. "Our officer was ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms. Fearing for his life, the officer fired a defensive shot."
Sosa-Celis, who received a bullet in the leg, was charged along with another Venezuelan man for their alleged attack on a "brave member of law enforcement."
The accused — take note: two men were charged, not three — denied ever assaulting anyone. But it took nearly a month for the government itself to admit: Okay, this never happened.
"Newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations in the Complaint Affidavit," prosecutors said in a Feb. 12 court filing, requesting that the case be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be filed again.
As ABC News reported, the case had actually fallen apart within days of the incident: "Neither video evidence nor testimony from a neighbor and the two men’s romantic partners supported the agent’s account that he had been attacked with a broom or shovel or that there had been a third person involved."
Who hasn't completely fabricated an alleged murder plot only to quietly drop the claim a few weeks later? Not this government, which has done it time and again.
Marimar Martinez was shot five times and labeled a "domestic terrorist." In October 2025, the Chicago woman was monitoring federal immigration activities in her city when a masked agent attempted to kill her. She was initially charged with a felony, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claiming in a statement at the time that she had "rammed" a law enforcement vehicle.
"Law enforcement was forced to deploy their weapons and fired defensive shots at an armed U.S. citizen who drove herself to the hospital to get care for wounds," McLaughlin said.
In fact, Martinez collapsed after driving her car to a nearby auto-repair shop. Her would-be killer — who yelled "do something, bitch" before opening fire — later boasted in text messages with his anonymous bros: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys."
Charges against Martinez were dropped, video showing that she had honked her vehicle's horn, not attacked anyone. That — not any ramming — prompted agents, their guns already drawn, to hop out of their car and go on the offensive. "It's time to get aggressive and get the fuck out," one said.
A month before Martinez was attacked, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, an immigrant from Mexico, was also shot in the streets of Chicago. At the time, DHS claimed the undocumented man, who had just dropped off his kids at school, "dragged" an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer "a significant distance with his car."
Charles R. Davis
"We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer," McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, said in a statement.
The recovery was indeed quick, but there was no need for divine intervention: "I've got a cut," the ICE agent said at the time of the incident, per body-cam footage. "Nothing major."
In that case, though, there were no criminal charges to be dropped: Like Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Villegas-Gonazalez's death sentence was carried out by a federal agent who acted as judge, jury and executioner.
One could go on, unfortunately (the father of three U.S. soldiers, severely beaten after DHS claimed he attacked federal agents with a weed whacker, just had his deportation case dismissed), but the point is made: When a department led by an openly adulterous, confessed perpetator of animal cruelty makes a claim about someone brutally attacked by one of its employees, it is almost certainly lying.
To note this, after the next person is shot, is not evidence of bias but the duty — providing context for official claims — of any responsible reporter. In the absence of professional journalism, however, news consumers can also employ the following trick when presented with a DHS press release: just wait a few weeks.
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