WASHINGTON — Six members of Congress want the FBI to explain, in writing, why federal agents are allowed to draw a loaded gun on a U.S. citizen sitting in her own car and then lie about why they did it.
That’s the blunt ask behind a letter sent Wednesday to Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Acting ICE Director David Venturella — demanding an immediate FBI investigation and a DOJ Civil Rights Division review into the ICE agents who boxed in Carolina Molina’s car in Falls Church, Virginia, on Aug. 10 and pointed a firearm at her head.
Reps. Don Beyer, Suhas Subramanyam and James Walkinshaw of Virginia signed the letter. So did Rep. Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee; Rep. Bennie Thompson, ranking member of Homeland Security; and Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of Judiciary — the three committees with jurisdiction over ICE. They gave DOJ and DHS until Monday, Aug. 31, to respond.
Migrant Insider has confirmed, through two DHS sources speaking on condition of anonymity, the identity of the agent who drew his weapon: Martin Lagunas, 40, the leader of an Enforcement and Removal Operations team out of Chicago.
“I never tried to run you over”
Molina was leaving a Bailey’s Crossroads shopping center — where she volunteers as a licensed professional counselor conducting mental health assessments for immigration clients — when unmarked vehicles pinned her car front and back. Masked agents surrounded her. One drew his gun.
“Yeah, you record this. You almost ran us over,” Lagunas told her, according to video Molina recorded and shared with lawmakers.
“I didn’t almost run you over,” Molina said.
“You almost ran us over! Stop playing!” Lagunas shouted back. “I will arrest you! Keep it up!”
“I’m a legal citizen!” Molina told him.
“Keep it up, I don’t care!”
The letter states plainly what the video shows: “Neither video shows any attempt by Ms. Molina to run over or otherwise endanger the ICE agents.” DHS’s own public statement — that Molina “attempted to harm officers by weaponizing her vehicle” — is, per the letter, “identical to previous claims made to justify the use of deadly force elsewhere that later collapsed after the production of video evidence.”
Molina invoked that pattern herself at Wednesday’s press conference, referencing the January killing of Renée Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis — a case in which agents used nearly identical language before video contradicted them. “I think my life was in danger at that point,” Molina said. “It wasn’t until after I was like, this was a whole Renée Good situation again.”
The paper trail Congress wants
The letter cites two ICE directives by number. Directive 19009.3 requires agents to “use force only when no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative appears to exist.” Directive 19010.3 requires body-worn cameras to be activated at the start of enforcement activity — and Molina’s own footage shows at least three agents wearing cameras, one of whom she says she watched press record.
That gives lawmakers a paper trail DHS can’t easily wave away. The letter’s ten questions demand the agents’ names and titles, their vehicle-stop training records, any disciplinary history, and “all complete and unedited body-worn camera footage, cellphone and vehicle footage” — footage the agency is legally required to already have.
Subramanyam, whose district includes Molina, told Migrant Insider that accountability won’t wait for a Republican-controlled FBI to act. “We’re going to do everything possible,” he said. “We will hold every single ICE officer accountable. Even if that accountability means public pressure and public shaming, that’s what needs to happen if there’s no accountability in ICE.” He added that Lagunas “should come before Congress to explain” himself if Democrats retake the House — and called a subpoena likely.
Beyer, in his own interview, said he’d never seen anything like the ICE buildup in his tenure in Congress: “My great concern is that they’re doing the kind of minimal background checks on ICE agents that you’d get, for example, to join a local police department” — rather than screening for “people that are stalwarts of the community.”
Molina, for her part, wants none of the spotlight. Asked what she’d say to Lagunas directly, she declined. “I don’t have a message for him,” she said. Asked what she’d tell others: “Don’t trust anything, and just move carefully.”
“You watched the video. Now you know the number on his badge and the two directives he may have violated — because two DHS sources trusted Migrant Insider with it before Congress got an answer. That’s the beat. Subscribe, and forward this to the one person still asking ‘wait, who was that agent?’
What The Video Shows
Molina was dropping business cards at immigration law offices near Bailey’s Crossroads on Aug. 10 when she saw ICE agents making arrests in the parking lot. She drove past. She turned around. Unmarked vehicles boxed her car in front and back. Masked agents got out. One drew his gun and pointed it at her.
“You almost ran us over,” the agent said, according to video Molina posted. She hadn’t. The lawmakers’ letter is blunt about it: “The claim of a deadly threat is obviously belied by both the video footage and their decision to leave her without detaining or charging her after she told them that she had dashcam footage of the encounter.”
DHS’s version, issued the next day, called Molina an “anti-ICE agitator” who “attempted to harm officers by weaponizing her vehicle against them.” The congressional letter calls that characterization “particularly concerning,” noting it mirrors language DHS has used elsewhere to justify deadly force — language that “later collapsed after the production of video evidence, just as this one has.”
The letter names names the public hasn’t seen: Ruben Ray Martinez. Renee Good. Alex Pretti. Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. Five people the lawmakers say died in incidents that fit the same pattern DHS is now applying to Molina.
The Second Northern Virginian This Month
Nine days after Molina’s encounter, Beyer is asking a second, separate set of questions — this time about a man who says he doesn’t remember what happened to him.
José Mejía Hernandez, 45, told Telemundo he was walking to a bus stop in Arlington on Aug. 11 when two trucks pulled up and men ran at him. He ran too. He says he was hit with a stun gun from behind. Then nothing — until he woke up in a D.C. hospital hours later with a brain bleed and a face covered in bruises.
His attorney says two ICE agents stayed at his hospital bedside the entire time, and that he was never given a private moment with his own doctors.
DHS disputes essentially all of it. The agency told Newsweek that Mejía Hernandez has been in the country illegally since 2006, accepted voluntary return, then reentered unlawfully in 2008. It told HuffPost that “allegations that he was unconscious and woke up in a hospital bed are FALSE,” insisting officers “rendered aid” and followed training after he “evaded arrest.”
Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti isn’t waiting for that dispute to resolve itself. “No one is above the law — not any individual, not law enforcement, and not federal officials — no one,” she said in a statement calling for an immediate investigation.
Beyer, whose district includes both incidents, said Mejía Hernandez’s case arrived amid what he called a broader surge — “unjustified violence” and “apparently warrantless detention” hitting Northern Virginia over the past 10 days.
“ICE agents are here, they are regularly ignoring their training and departmental regulations that call for de-escalation, they are disappearing people, and they are all too frequently becoming out of control or violent,” Beyer said. “I urge Northern Virginians to exercise extreme caution.”
What Comes Next
The letter demands ICE turn over body-camera footage — Molina says she watched an agent activate his — along with cellphone video, use-of-force reports, and the names of every agent who surrounded her car. It asks whether those agents are still authorized to work the streets of Northern Virginia right now, while Congress waits for an answer.
They have until Aug. 31.
“Carolina Molina had a gun in her face and a dashcam that proved DHS was lying. José Mejía Hernandez woke up with a brain bleed and no memory of how he got it. Six members of Congress just gave the FBI eleven days to explain both. Migrant Insider will be tracking that deadline — subscribe so you’re not finding out from a press release.
How many more dangerous incidents like this need to happen before these ice goons are held accountable? How many more people need to die? Even one is too many. This reckless out-of-control behavior needs to stop. Before someone else gets killed. The kicker is how they so flagrantly lie about it after the fact, especially when there is video evidence to the contrary.
1. "Molina was dropping business cards“ - what business cards?
2. "My great concern is that they’re doing the kind of minimal background checks on ICE agents that you’d get, for example, to join a local police department” — rather than screening for “people that are stalwarts of the community.” - ummm if thats how you get a local pd job in virginia no wonder they have issues. That is not the norm in some states. What an odd statement.