Democrats on Capitol Hill offered apologies and promises of accountability on Tuesday amid often harrowing testimony from people who had experienced violent encounters with federal agents engaged in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
With Republicans conspicuously absent, the forum of senators and representatives heard from Luke and Brent Ganger, the brothers of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, who was shot dead by an Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis on 7 January as she tried to drive away from agents.
Luke Ganger said he and his brother were there “to ask for you help” and suggested the sense of loss his family felt had been deepened by subsequent events in Minneapolis, where a protester, Alex Pretti, also aged 37, was shot dead by two border patrol agents on 24 January.
“The deep distress our family feels at Renee’s loss in such a violent and unnecessary way is complicated by feelings of disbelief, distress and desperation,” he said.
“In the last few weeks, our family took some consolation, thinking that perhaps Nee’s death would bring about change in our country. It has not. The completely surreal scenes taking place are beyond explanation.
“This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents. These encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours. I still don’t know how to explain to my four-year-old what these agents are doing when we pass by.”
His daughter, Ganger added, “knows that her aunt died and that somebody caused it to happen”.
He said the death of his sister had brought his family closer, although they had different political viewpoints.
The brothers’ testimony was followed by that of Marimar Martinez, Aliya Rahman and Martin Daniel Rascon, three US citizens who each described traumatic experiences at the hands of agents while they were in their cars.
Martinez, from Chicago, recalled how she was shot five times by a border patrol agent, who later circulated images as she lay wounded in hospital to colleagues as “trophy” pictures. The agent then accused her of assaulting a federal agent and of ramming his vehicle with her car, resulting in criminal charges that were subsequently dismissed.
The agent who shot Martinez was identified in the hearing as Charles Exum. Texts that he sent to colleagues were shown to the assembled gathering in the Dirksen Senate office building. One read: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book, boys.” Members of Congress at the hearing called for him to be arrested and prosecuted.
Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative from California, told Martinez: “The entire country needs to hear your story. I am angry on your behalf, Miss Martinez.”
Rahman, who said she suffers from autism and a traumatic brain injury, described how agents violently pulled her from her car after she was caught in a traffic jam caused by ICE vehicles as she tried to reach a medical appointment at the Hennepin county brain injury center in Minneapolis on 13 January.
“I yelled: ‘I’m disabled’ at the hands grabbing me. One of them said ‘too late’,” she said.
“An agent pulled a large combat knife in front of my face, which I thought was for cutting me, and later learned was used to cut off my seat belt.
“Shooting pain went through my head, neck and wrists when I hit the ground face-first and people leaned on my back. I was carried facedown through the street by my cuffed arms and legs while yelling that I had a brain injury and was disabled.
“I now cannot lift my arms normally. I was never asked for my ID and never told I was under arrest.”
She was later taken to a detention center, where – she said – agents referred to those being detained as “bodies”.
Later in the hearing, Rahman put her arm around her fellow witness Rascon, from San Bernardino in California, as a comfort as he struggled to deliver testimony describing his experiences at the hands of ICE and border patrol after an agent opened fire on the car he was traveling in with family members last August.
Robert Garcia, a California representative who is the top Democrat on the House of Representatives oversight committee, said the nature of the testimony was difficult to hear.
“I’m so sorry that the stories are horrific, and I promise you that every single one of us, whether it’s the House or the Senate, we will hold all of those that caused you harm accountable,” he said. “You all deserve justice and you deserve peace. And it’s horrific that anyone in our country has to go through what you have all been.”
Richard Blumenthal, a senator for Connecticut, who led the hearing along with Garcia, called the testimony “a defining moment and a moral moment”.
He used words once aimed at Joseph McCarthy, the 1950’s red-baiting Republican senator for Wisconsin, to excoriate Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and other administration members involved in the immigration raids. “Have you no sense of decency?” he said. “Have you no sense of shame?”
Alex Padilla, a senator for California who was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by two federal agents last year when he tried to ask Noem a question at a press conference, lamented the absence of Republicans from the forum.
“Why is it just Democrats?” he asked. “Let’s not let our Republican colleagues off the hook. Under normal circumstances, regardless of who’s in the majority, when a tragedy has happened, congressional committees conduct our job to provide oversight. The Republican colleagues refused to.”
