[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 4, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S484-S485]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Immigration and Customs Enforcement

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we had a hearing yesterday. It was an 
impromptu spotlight hearing, not in the ordinary course of Senate 
business. And we invited witnesses in to testify about what is 
happening in major cities across our country. Today, I am going to 
address one of those witnesses and her experience in the city of 
Chicago.
  Her name is Marimar Martinez. She is 30 years old. She is a teacher 
in a Montessori school. In October, she decided that she was going to 
take some extra clothing that she had in her apartment to her church 
and leave it so that other people might be able to benefit from it.
  Driving over there, she encountered a truck that was clearly being 
driven by ICE officials, Border Patrol officials. She beeped her horn 
because of their presence. They stopped the car, and the agents got out 
of the car with their guns. They started shooting her automobile. They 
ended up shooting her five times--five times. The agent who shot her, a 
20-plus-year veteran of the Border Patrol, bragged on the text that he 
sent shortly thereafter that he caused seven holes in her body with 
five bullets.
  What happened to her afterward is a grim story. She was able to drive 
about a mile to 35th and California in Chicago and got out of the car 
and passed out. And a fellow came to her aid and called an ambulance. 
They took her to the local hospital, where she was bleeding profusely. 
They were trying to save her life. Again, she was in and out of 
consciousness and asked to go to a second hospital when the bleeding 
wouldn't stop.
  The FBI was then present, monitoring her every step of the way. This 
went on for hours and hours afterward: A victim with gunshot wounds. 
She was trying to survive, and they were trying to arrest her.
  The charges, as I mentioned, were that she was ramming a Federal 
vehicle. She denied it. And this is an interesting part of the story. 
ICE and the Federal officials decided to move the vehicle from Chicago, 
IL, to the State of Maine--1,000 miles. Why would they take the 
vehicle, after this incident, 1,000 miles? Well, it turned out, they 
had some work to do on it so it wouldn't show that her damage was on 
the side of the car--on the side of their car and wasn't the result of 
any ramming whatsoever.
  Of course, the Agencies involved described her as a domestic 
terrorist--this 30-year-old Montessori schoolteacher with no criminal 
record, born and raised in the United States. It took several months of 
hearings for the decision to be finally made by the government to drop 
all charges against Marimar Martinez.
  Think of that experience for a minute: in America, driving your car, 
being shot five times by the Federal agents. That, unfortunately, is 
becoming commonplace.
  We saw the terrible executions that took place in Minnesota--innocent 
people who were protesting within their constitutional rights are dead 
today, Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
  What is going on in the streets of America does not reflect who we 
are and what our goals and values must be. I think about that 
repeatedly.
  That young lady bears the scars of those wounds for the rest of her 
life and experience. She was asked: What does she want from this 
experience? What would she like to have, now that all the charges have 
been dropped?
  She said: I want the government to clear my name. They branded me a 
domestic terrorist, and I am not one.
  Is that too much to ask, for the government to say they were wrong, 
that they shot her five times in a car as she was leaving, and they 
were wrong in the charges they were bringing against her? I don't think 
it is too much to ask. What is too much to ask is that this continues.
  There is a conversation underway between the leaderships of the House 
and the Senate and the White House about changing the rules when it 
comes to these ICE agents. The fact that they would wear masks is being 
argued as one of the points.
  I have yet to meet a Senator or a Congressman arguing that they 
should be able to wear a mask, who tell me their State police wear 
masks on a regular basis. They don't. There may be a peculiar 
circumstance where it is required, but it is unusual. This Agency, ICE, 
wants to make this routine, that you could wear a mask and conceal your 
identity.
  We believe that the masks should come off and video cameras come on. 
The video cameras will tell us what happened, good or bad, for the 
officers involved. They are being used in police departments across 
America. Why wouldn't they apply to this situation?
  When it comes to the right of individuals to be safe in their homes, 
that is one of the basics of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. 
The home is, in fact, a critical symbol of that constitutional right.
  I think back to my courses that I took in law school on the Bill of 
Rights and the circumstances involving the British and the monarchy 
that led to the Bill of Rights. One of the things was that people 
wanted to be safe in their homes.
  Now, it is being argued by these Federal Agencies that they don't 
need any warrant to batter down your front door and enter your home, 
and look and see if someone who is suspicious is inside. That is just 
unacceptable and unconstitutional.
  A year ago, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Pam Bondi as Attorney 
General. As I said during her confirmation hearing, last year, the 
Attorney General must be committed, first and foremost, to the 
Constitution and the American people, not to the President and his 
political agenda. I was unconvinced then that Ms. Bondi shared that 
view. Over the course of the last year, my concerns sadly have been 
borne out.
  Even before Attorney General Bondi was installed atop the Justice 
Department, Donald Trump had moved swiftly to purge DOJ and the FBI of 
senior career law enforcement officials. In their place came partisan 
hacks, including a January 6 rioter who encouraged his fellow 
insurrectionists to murder law enforcement officers protecting the 
Capitol. He was shouting the words ``kill em'' when he came to the 
police who were defending this Capitol Building. That person ended up 
being pardoned and then becoming part of the Department of Justice 
staff. Can you believe it?
  Under the direction of Attorney General Bondi, these MAGA loyalists 
pounced on President Trump's perceived enemies. In addition to the now-
dismissed indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New 
York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal prosecutors have opened 
criminal investigations into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, 
Governor Lisa Cook, and others.
  The list goes on and on of the enemies of the President who are being 
prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Why? Not because they broke 
the law but because the President believes they are his political 
enemies.
  And it begs the question: If the President can turn the Department of 
Justice and the FBI into his own personal police force to target his 
personal and political enemies, what is stopping him from targeting 
ordinary Americans?
  Tragically, we are already seeing the answer to that question in the 
Department of Justice's partisan response to

[[Page S485]]

the Homeland Security Department's abuses in Chicago and Minneapolis. 
The Department of Justice has sought to press charges against Americans 
who peacefully protest, like Marimar Martinez in Chicago.
  In addition to state-sponsored violence against its own citizens, the 
country is less safe as the DOJ has redirected thousands of law 
enforcement agents to immigration-related initiatives and away from gun 
violence, drug trafficking, and child exploitation.
  When this President, through his Department of Justice and Department 
of Homeland Security, announced that they were going after the ``worst 
of the worst''--rapists, murderers, terrorists, the criminally insane, 
criminal children's predators, and the like--the ``worst of the 
worst,'' remember that?
  We didn't think it was Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old Montessori 
teacher with no criminal record, born and raised in the city of 
Chicago, an American citizen. That was one of the victims they shot 
five times, trying to kill her when leaving the scene of a 
confrontation.

  On day one in office, Attorney General Bondi created the so-called 
Weaponization Working Group, a task force to investigate the 
investigators and prosecute the prosecutors. Recent reports suggest the 
group will soon meet daily with the goal of producing results in the 
next 2 months that reenergize the partisan criminal probes that only 
exist for the sake of one sad man's ego and to revitalize his dangerous 
conspiracy theories.
  But in the quest to pursue the President's political enemies and 
rewrite history, Attorney General Pam Bondi has tripped over her own 
feet repeatedly, the most recent example being her mismanagement of the 
Epstein files.
  Let's take a trip down memory lane. Last February, the Attorney 
General claimed she had Epstein's client list ``sitting on [her] desk 
right now to review.'' Several days later, in a media event the White 
House staged, she released a number of binders of files to conservative 
influencers and commentators that were already largely publicly 
available.
  Then, as a whistleblower disclosure to my office revealed, in the 
wake of public criticism, she pressured 1,000 FBI agents to comb 
through thousands of pages of documents in the Epstein files and to 
flag any mention of President Trump.
  This effort resulted in an unsigned memo released by DOJ and the FBI 
that walked back Attorney General Bondi's claims and concluded there 
was no ``incriminating `client list' '' despite the statement to the 
contrary.
  Then, in December, the Attorney General broke the law when her 
Department failed to release the entirety of the Epstein files by the 
date mandated by Congress and signed into law. DOJ continues to slowly 
walk the release, and what they have released has harmed survivors by 
not appropriately redacting their names, images, and other personal 
information.
  The American people deserve answers about the conduct of the Nation's 
leading law enforcement officers. No public servant who respects 
constitutional checks and balances would behave the way she did. 
According to an academic analysis of 400 cases involving the Trump 
administration, as of October 2025, at least 35 times courts have found 
the Department of Justice under President Trump has provided false or 
highly misleading information, including false sworn declarations.
  It makes you wonder: What is the Attorney General concealing? What 
kind of precedent is the Department creating for itself under this 
leadership?
  We cannot allow the Trump administration to stonewall and lie to its 
coequal branches of government, Congress and the judiciary.
  The announcement today that 700 Federal agents are going to be 
removed from Minnesota is a minor relief to the beleaguered State. 
There are 3,000 agents already in place. So to take 700 away, this is 
still a massive force, larger than the local police force in Minnesota.
  And my question for the State of Illinois is, How many of these 
agents are headed to my State? Who will be the next beneficiary of this 
outrageous conduct?
  Leaders in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have a 
responsibility: Hold ICE and the Border Patrol to the same standards as 
every other police force in America. Don't give them special 
privileges. Give them only their rights under the law, and make them 
hold to them.
  That is one of the cruelties and realities that we face today--that 
the standards are being changed so that these people can harass 
innocent individuals like Marimar Martinez. That is unacceptable.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.