The first thing the incoming House majority did about killings by federal immigration agents was not a subpoena. It was a letter telling the government not to throw anything away.
Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee and the man expected to chair it in January, wrote on Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin citing the Federal Records Act. He asked for written assurance by November 11 that no records have been or will be destroyed or altered, and for the documents his committee has already requested by December 2. Thompson did not allege that anything had been destroyed.
The deadline sits a full seven weeks before Democrats actually gain the power to compel anything. That is the point of it.
The cases
Three deaths this year are at the center of the inquiry, and two of the three people killed were American citizens.
- Renee Good, a mother of three and a US citizen, was shot dead by an ICE officer in Minneapolis in January.
- Alex Pretti, a nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital and a US citizen, was killed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis the same month.
- Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three and a Mexican immigrant, was shot dead by an ICE officer in Houston in July.
Committee Democrats have sought records and video from Minneapolis and body-camera and vehicle-camera footage from Houston. They have also called for independent investigations into the deaths of Ruben Ray Martinez, in Texas in March 2025, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, in Maine in July 2026. According to The Trace, at least seven other people have been killed by federal immigration agents since Trump returned to office.
A separate thread has nothing to do with shootings: the purchase by DHS of 10 aircraft from Daedalus Aviation, whose chief executive had donated to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary at the time.
What changes in January, and what does not
With the gavels come three tools the minority does not have: the power to issue subpoenas, to put witnesses under oath, and to demand internal paperwork such as use-of-force reports. Until now Democrats have been reduced to shadow hearings with relatives and witnesses, which produce testimony but no documents.
What a majority does not buy is money. Cutting an agency's funding over a presidential veto would take a two-thirds majority in both chambers, and Democrats are nowhere near it — as of Friday they held at least 253 House seats and 54 in the Senate, with Alaska and Mississippi still uncalled.
Who is on the list
Representative Delia Ramirez of Illinois has told five officials to clear their calendars: Mullin; Noem, his predecessor; border czar Tom Homan; Gregory Bovino, the former Border Patrol commander-at-large; and Stephen Miller, who becomes White House chief of staff on Monday. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, expected to chair the Judiciary Committee, says Congress will use "every tool" to investigate ICE. Representative Robert Garcia of California, in line for Oversight, published a two-word post on Tuesday night: "LAWYER UP." Representative Analilia Mejia of New Jersey put it differently — "We're going to toss out subpoenas like Mardi Gras beads."
Bovino, who was pushed out of the administration after the Minneapolis killings, is not waiting to find out. "I think they will subpoena me for sure," he told Newsweek. None has been issued. A federal judge in Chicago, Sara Ellis, had already ordered him to testify in litigation over agents' use of force and afterwards described him as evasive in his deposition.
The administration's answer
A White House spokeswoman, Lauren Bis, called the planned inquiries "sham" investigations and noted that the administration still controls the federal government. James Percival, the general counsel at DHS, said Democrats are more interested in political games than in governing and that his department is prepared to respond. A DHS spokesperson said the agency "responds to official correspondence through official channels." A Justice Department spokesperson said officials "have followed the law."
DHS did not answer NPR's question about the status of its own investigations into the three deaths.
Reporting from NPR and Newsweek.
