Breaking: Another U.S. citizen was secretly killed by ICE
DHS Loses More Court Cases, Trump Implicated With 13-Year Old, and Legal British Grandma Detained
Good morning.
We’ve got a consequential news day to work through. A third American citizen killed by federal immigration agents has been uncovered — and DHS hid it for a year. A sitting congresswoman is demanding answers about an FBI tip alleging Donald Trump sexually abused a 13-year-old girl. The DOJ’s crackdown on protesters is collapsing in court as officers’ lies get exposed on video. And a 65-year-old British grandmother just told the world what it was like to spend six weeks shackled in an ICE detention center for the crime of taking a vacation. Let’s get into all of it.
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Covered Up: A Third American Killed by Federal Agents
The body count is worse than we knew. Newsweek has confirmed that a Homeland Security Investigations agent shot and killed Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, in South Padre Island, Texas, on March 15, 2025. DHS never publicly disclosed it.
It took a FOIA request — filed by watchdog American Oversight — to uncover it, nearly a year later.
That makes three American citizens killed by federal immigration agents under Trump’s mass deportation regime. Renée Good, a mother of three in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse in Minneapolis. And now Ruben Ray Martinez, whose family says he was trying to comply with local law enforcement directing traffic when a federal agent opened fire.
DHS claims Martinez “intentionally ran over” an agent. Newsweek couldn’t corroborate that account, and this is the same, sometimes bogus story they’ve told about other shootings. It remains unclear whether body camera footage exists or whether members of Congress were notified.
His mother, Rachel Reyes, told Newsweek: “Since Ruben’s death a year ago, all we have wanted is justice for him and we have struggled with the silence surrounding his killing. Now, the country is in crisis — and, terribly, heartbreakingly, other families are enduring what we have.”
His family’s attorneys are demanding a full investigation into why Homeland Security agents were present at the scene of a traffic collision and why a federal officer shot and killed a U.S. citizen. The case is under investigation by the Texas Rangers. The FBI is not involved.
This is exactly the pattern Democrats cited when they shut down DHS funding. Three deaths. One hidden for a year. Zero convictions. And the administration wants more money for more agents with fewer restrictions.
FBI Tip Implicates Trump With 13-Year Old
Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico is demanding answers about an FBI tip filed in 2016 that alleges the sexual exploitation of a minor involving both Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.
The tip was published last month as part of the Epstein file release. It was filed by an attorney on behalf of a client identified as Jane Doe.
According to the FBI write-up, the attorney told agents that Doe, who was 13 at the time, was lured across state lines under the pretense of starting a modeling career to attend parties hosted by Epstein, all of which Trump allegedly attended. The attorney alleged that Doe was asked to perform sexual acts on Trump, and that during the fourth party, both Trump and Epstein raped her and threatened her with violence if she reported it.
A court complaint was filed and a scheduling conference was set for September 2016. The FBI write-up notes that the complaint generated an internal case number.
Stansbury, a member of the House Oversight Committee, posted Saturday asking why more people aren’t asking questions about this tip. As a member of Oversight, she has standing to push for congressional subpoenas compelling witnesses to testify under oath.
It is worth noting, as the underlying reporting does, that the Epstein files contain many unverified and uncorroborated allegations, and Trump faces no criminal charges or investigations related to this tip. But the question of why it wasn’t pursued deserves an answer.
DOJ’s ICE Protest Cases Keep Falling Apart
Federal prosecutors across the country have been aggressively pursuing criminal charges against people accused of assaulting or impeding federal officers during immigration enforcement operations.
The cases are collapsing. Repeatedly and embarrassingly.
In Minneapolis, felony assault charges against two Venezuelan men accused of “violently beating” an ICE officer with a snow shovel and broom handle were dismissed last month after newly discovered evidence was found to be “materially inconsistent” with the complaint affidavit. ICE’s own director acknowledged that two officers appeared to have made untruthful statements under oath. The cases were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be re-filed.
In Los Angeles, federal public defenders have won all six ICE protest cases that have gone to trial since June. In Chicago, of 92 people arrested for assaulting or impeding officers, 74 faced no charges and 13 had charges filed and dismissed, with zero convictions as of late January. Not-guilty verdicts have come in from Louisville, Seattle, and Washington DC as well.
Fewer than one percent of federal defendants are typically acquitted. The DOJ’s loss rate on these cases is historically extraordinary.
Defense lawyers say the pattern isn’t accidental. ICE agents use force, then construct narratives to justify it, and prosecutors file charges to back the story up. When video surfaces, the story falls apart.
The defendants, even those ultimately exonerated, have had their mugshots blasted nationwide, sat in jail for weeks or months, and in some cases had their reputations follow them permanently across the internet.
CBS Is in Freefall
CBS News is losing the people who made it matter. The reasons all point in the same direction.
Stephen Colbert, whose show was canceled after he publicly criticized CBS parent company Paramount’s $16 million settlement of Trump’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” Kamala Harris interview, was blocked by CBS lawyers from airing an interview with a Democratic Senate candidate. He posted it to YouTube anyway, where it drew over 5 million views.
Anderson Cooper has departed after sources say editorial scrutiny from new CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss left his reporting pipeline stalled and his producer exasperated. Producer Alicia Hastey walked out with a farewell note warning that stories were being evaluated not on journalistic merit but on whether they “conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations.”
Weiss, installed by new Paramount owner David Ellison, also reportedly refused to fire a newly hired wellness contributor whose name appeared more than 1,700 times in the Epstein files. Senior executives had to escalate to Ellison himself to resolve it.
She had previously delayed a “60 Minutes” segment documenting Trump’s deportation of migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
The cumulative effect is an institution eating itself. Veteran correspondents Lesley Stahl and Scott Pelley have spoken publicly about their concerns. Longtime executive producer Bill Owens already resigned over editorial independence.
No roster of podcasters and wellness influencers can replace what took decades to build.
CBS’ capitulation to the Trump regime is why we do what we do. We’re the people-powered response to MAGA’s takeover of our media. Become a paid subscriber today to help us fight back.
British Grandmother Legally In the U.S. Detained by ICE
Karen Newton, a 65-year-old retired school administrator from Hertfordshire with no criminal record, spent 42 days in ICE detention after being turned back from the Canadian border because her husband’s visa had expired. She had a valid tourist visa.
Handcuffed. Shackled at the wrists, waist, and ankles. Driven through the night. She slept on the floor of a cell for a month.
Guards told her repeatedly that ICE agents receive a bonus for every person they detain. ICE denies it.
She came home to dead houseplants, a flat car battery, a damaged credit score, and luggage that was never returned. Her message to tourists: don’t go to America while Trump is in charge.
With the World Cup arriving in the US this summer, her warning carries real weight.
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Keep fighting,
John, Justin and The Raw America Team
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ISIS: 15,000–20,000 Affiliates Now at Large in Syria — U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that between 15,000 and 20,000 people, including relatives and affiliates of Islamic State, are now moving freely inside Syria following a security breakdown at the al-Hol camp. The crisis followed the Syrian government routing the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces that had guarded the camp for years. Security experts had long warned that children raised inside the camp were being radicalized, effectively raising the next generation of militants.
Russia Hits Ukraine With 128 Drones Overnight, Peace Talks Stall — Russian forces launched a ballistic missile and 128 drones at Ukraine overnight, with attacks causing injuries and damage to oil and gas infrastructure. Meanwhile, U.S.-mediated peace talks in Geneva ended with Russia calling them “difficult” and Ukraine saying there was limited progress. Ukraine announced it had liberated 300 square kilometers in a southern counteroffensive, even as the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion approaches Tuesday.
Washington Post Guts Its Newsroom — In a story that got swallowed by bigger news cycles, the Washington Post laid off more than 300 journalists, roughly a third of its newsroom, eliminating the sports and books sections, gutting the foreign desk, and slashing metro coverage. The paper’s Middle East team was cut entirely. Jeff Bezos, whose net worth exceeds $250 billion, could cover the Post’s reported annual losses for over a thousand years without making a meaningful dent in his wealth. Reporters and press freedom groups called it a civic disaster.
Ukraine Strikes One of Russia’s Most Important Missile Factories — Ukraine hit the Votkinsk Plant in a long-range strike — a strategic, state-owned defense enterprise described as one of Russia’s most important ballistic missile factories. Separately, Russian President Putin signed a new law granting Russia’s Federal Security Service broad authority to order the disconnection of individuals from mobile and home internet services, framed as a security measure but widely seen as another tool to silence dissent.
There have been more than three people killed by DHS. There’s been NINE, at least.
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There are hundreds of FD-302 forms in the Epstein files filled out by the FBI. They are extremely informative about tips filed by victims. Why are those forms not showing up as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act?