Maryland senator claims ICE given "license to kill," says DHS lied about Glen Burnie shooting

Maryland's senior U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen condemned recent immigration enforcement actions by the Trump administration and asked fellow lawmakers not to approve new funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after federal agents killed two people and shot a third in Minnesota, and also shot a man in Glen Burnie.

Those cases remain under investigation. 

"I, for one, will not vote for one more dime for this lawless DHS operation that we're witnessing at this time," Sen. Van Hollen said in remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday.

Congress is facing a partial government shutdown by Saturday if the U.S. Senate fails to advance a spending measure. 

Demanding action 

Senator Van Hollen demanded that the White House change the way U.S. ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection are conducting enforcement operations and asked his colleagues to stop new funding until that happens.

"They are giving agents a license to kill with impunity. Secretary Noem should be fired immediately, if not fired, impeached," Van Hollen said of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. 

His pleas followed heated confrontations between federal immigration officers and the protesters in Minneapolis with two deaths under investigation there. 

Controversy has also followed immigration enforcement operations in Maryland after ICE changed their initial account of the shooting of Tiago Sousa-Martins, an undocumented immigrant from Portugal, in Glen Burnie on Christmas Eve. 

ICE initially claimed another undocumented man was a passenger in a work truck that tried to run over agents, leading them to open fire. 

Anne Arundel County police later said that passenger was already in ICE custody and Sousa-Martins was the the only person in the vehicle. 

"In my state of Maryland, DHS lied about the circumstances surrounding a non-fatal shooting," Van Hollen said. "They were exposed in their lies because of a local county investigation that showed DHS was plain wrong."

Plea deal in works? 

In court documents reviewed by WJZ Investigates, prosecutors referred to "lengthy video and voluminous photographic evidence" of the incident.

"The evidence in this case includes numerous lengthy videos, which will take many hours to review in their totality, in addition to hundreds of photographs, and other reports," wrote Maryland U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes. 

Hayes also acknowledged work on a plea deal. 

"The government further represents that it is engaged in ongoing discussions with the defendant and believes that this may lead to a resolution without a contested trial," Hayes wrote. 

Hayes said Sousa-Martin's' public defender has consented to a motion that delays proceedings until late February. 

According to a motion filed last week in the case, "The discovery in this case is voluminous. Defense counsel has not yet had the opportunity to fully consult with her client about all aspects of the case and the evidence. Defense counsel needs additional time to review the discovery and to consult with her client as to whether to proceed to trial or seek a pretrial resolution. A plea disposition in this case would serve the interests of justice because it would allow the parties to enter into a mutually acceptable and beneficial disposition and would also preserve the resources that might otherwise be expended in a trial."

On Wednesday night, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Austin ordered both parties to file motions by Thursday evening regarding a preliminary hearing.

"No condition eliminating the right to a preliminary hearing has occurred here," Judge Austin wrote. "The Court finds no indication that Mr. Sousa-Martins waived his right to a preliminary hearing, either orally or in writing, at or since the initial appearance."

Another high-profile immigration case in Maryland involves Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, who was arrested in an ICE operation in Baltimore in December, despite her claims that she is a U.S. citizen born in Maryland. 

She has since been released with an ankle monitor and spoke to WJZ Investigates earlier this month. 

"They're stopping and arresting people who are citizens, who are legal residents, who have legal pending asylum claims just because of how they look or their accent," Van Hollen alleged Wednesday.

DHS defending actions

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended her agency's immigration enforcement. 

"We know for a fact that we had hundreds if not thousands of terrorists, suspected terrorists, criminal organizations and gangs that came in and have been committing criminal activities against American citizens for years now," Secretary Noem said Saturday. "The American people said enough is enough. We want them out of our country. We want them brought to justice, and they trusted President Trump to go out there and to make America safe again."

Some local sheriffs have pushed back on efforts in Maryland's General Assembly to block local cooperation with ICE. 

Currently, eight counties have cooperation agreements including Allegany, Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Washington and St. Mary's counties. 

You can read more about them here.

"The bottom line is that the president is going to make changes in Minnesota. He sent Tom Homan there. I think if those changes are reasonable, I think the Democrats should get on board and fully fund the federal government," Representative Andy Harris, Maryland's lone Republican in Congress, told FOX News Wednesday. "That's one of the jobs of Congress. They're going to have the opportunity to do that later this week in the Senate, and I hope they do."