On January 14, 2026, an ICE agent shot and wounded Julio Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant, outside his Minneapolis home. Within hours, federal officials had a version of events ready for the public: three residents had attacked the agent with a shovel and broom for nearly three minutes, forcing him to fire in self-defense. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called it an "attempted murder of federal law enforcement." Two men were charged with a felony within two days.

There was just one problem: a city-owned security camera had captured the entire encounter. And it told a completely different story.

The video shows a struggle lasting roughly 12 seconds — not three minutes. A shovel is tossed aside before any confrontation begins and never used as a weapon. No sustained bludgeoning. No mob attack. Just two men and a federal agent in a brief, chaotic scrum outside a front door.

Federal prosecutors had access to that footage within hours of the shooting. They filed felony charges anyway — without watching it. Nearly three weeks passed before a prosecutor finally reviewed the video. The charges were dropped shortly after.

ICE's own acting director, Todd Lyons, later acknowledged that two agents appeared to have lied under oath and placed them on administrative leave. Yet as of today, no criminal charges have been filed against either agent. Their names have not been released. And state investigators trying to determine whether the shooting itself was lawful have been stonewalled, denied information as basic as the agents' identities.

This is not a partisan issue. Whether you support aggressive immigration enforcement or oppose it, lying under oath to federal prosecutors is a crime. Filing charges against people based on fabricated accounts is a serious abuse of power. And allowing federal agents to hide behind anonymity while their victims face deportation is a failure of the rule of law.

We are calling on the Department of Justice to pursue criminal charges against the agents who provided false sworn statements — and to release their names so that accountability is possible.

No one in America should face prison based on a lie. And no federal agent should be above the law.