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A Border Patrol agent on Thursday shot two people during a vehicle stop in Portland, bringing the number of people shot by federal immigration officials to three since Wednesday morning.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Border Patrol, claimed that the two people shot on Thursday afternoon were members of the Tren de Aragua gang—the administration’s favorite scapegoat to justify its evil immigration enforcement actions.
However, nothing DHS or anyone in the Trump administration says can be taken at face value. They have lied time and again—even when their lies are easily disprovable by video evidence.
Here's what DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed happened in Portland on Thursday:
At 2:19 PST, US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop in Portland, Oregon. The passenger of the vehicle and target is a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring and involved in a recent shooting in Portland. The vehicle driver is believed to be a member of the vicious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. When agents identified themselves to the vehicle occupants, the driver weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over the law enforcement agents.Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired defensive shots. The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.
This situation is evolving and more information is forthcoming.
However, McLaughlin’s statement is virtually worthless. Just one day earlier, she flagrantly lied about the circumstances around the shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Immediately after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot and killed Good in her car, McLaughlin issued a statement accusing Good of domestic terrorism.
"Today, ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism," she wrote in a post on X. "An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers."
And yet, as video footage of the horrific killing surfaced, McLaughlin's lies fell apart.
As evidence shows, Good was not trying to run anyone over, and the ICE agent fired at her while she drove past him. No agents were in grave danger. Instead, a woman's life was snuffed out by a masked goon.
Unsurprisingly, that’s not the only time the Trump administration lied about an ICE-involved shooting.
In October, federal immigration agents shot 30-year-old U.S. citizen Marimar Martinez five times while she was in her car. Notorious liar McLaughlin claimed Martinez “rammed” law enforcement agents with her car, which led to an officer shooting her five times.
The Department of Justice charged Martinez but later dropped those charges. The officer who shot her drove his supposedly rammed vehicle out of state before it could be inspected, and he even reportedly texted his friends to brag about shooting the victim.
What's more, McLaughlin's claim that the two latest victims of immigration official violence in Portland were members of Tren de Aragua also can't be trusted, since DHS has wrongly accused multiple people of being part of the gang to justify their efforts to deport them.
Who can forget Andry Hernández Romero, the gay makeup artist who was sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador after the Trump administration accused him of being a violent Tren de Aragua member based on a tattoo he had?
Anyone with eyes and even a shred of common sense could tell that Romero—a legal asylum-seeker in the United States—was not a violent gang member. And yet he was brutalized at CECOT for months due to the Trump administration's anti-immigrant bigotry.
There was also the time in September when DHS conducted a raid on an apartment complex in Chicago, which they claimed was "filled" with Tren de Aragua members. To appear to be tough, they sickeningly had the raid filmed. However, as of November, not a single person they rounded up had been charged with a crime.
On top of all that, President Donald Trump himself has lied to justify his cruel immigration policy, repeatedly showing doctored images of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to justify his deportation to the CECOT torture prison. Eventually, Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S., and in December, a judge ordered him to be released from custody as the case against him collapsed.
Information is still coming out about the Portland shooting. But early evidence suggests the people who were shot may not have been gang members, since one reportedly called the police for help.
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