House Homeland Security Committee Democrats Demand Records, Set Oct. 1 Preservation Deadline Over Garces Perez Shooting

Opening

On September 24, 2026, Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), joined by roughly 30 other Committee Democrats, sent a formal oversight letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding records related to the September 20 ICE shooting of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in Austin. This is a Committee Democrats letter under Committee jurisdiction (citing House Rule X, Section 3(g)) — not a letter from the full, bipartisan Committee, and not signed by Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-NY). It is distinct from a separate, broader letter sent two days earlier.

What Happened / Key Facts

Two different letters, two different senders — do not conflate them. A September 22, 2026 letter to Secretary Mullin and Acting ICE Director David Venturella was signed by Reps. Greg Casar, Joaquin Castro, and Lloyd Doggett plus more than 100 other Members of Congress (not limited to Homeland Security Committee membership); it posed 9 numbered questions and set a Monday, September 28, 2026 deadline to answer them. The September 24 letter analyzed here is narrower in signatories (Committee Democrats specifically) but broader and more granular in its document demands (17 numbered items) and invokes formal Committee investigative authority.

The September 24 letter’s core demands. Committee Democrats wrote they are “investigating the latest senseless shooting by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer” and DHS’s “stated intent to deport the victim… prior to the completion of an investigation.” They demand Garces Perez “receive any necessary medical care without further delay” and “be allowed to remain in the U.S. pending a full, independent investigation.” The 17 enumerated document/information demands include: all video and body-worn-camera footage (or an explanation for its absence); the list of agencies and personnel present; vehicle markings, lights/sirens use, and officer identification procedures; the shooting officer’s employment status, administrative-leave status, and disciplinary/use-of-force history; evidence of injuries and vehicle damage; whether Garces Perez was an initial enforcement target; details of ICE’s communications with his treating hospital; and whether the shooting is under both criminal and administrative investigation.

The letter cites a pattern, not an isolated incident. It lists, as prior examples of DHS “lack of credibility” in shooting cases: ICE officer Christian Castro (charged with lying about a Minneapolis shooting); the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston (“falsely claimed he had drugs in [his] vehicle”); the fatal shootings of US citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis; and the shooting of US citizen Marimar Martinez, whose criminal case was later dismissed after video contradicted the government’s account. It cites The Trace’s tracker for “at least 31 incidents” of immigration agents shooting at people since operations began — an updated figure from the 21-shot aggregate ABC News reported on September 25 (2026-09-25–ice-agents-shot-at-least-21-people-trump-second-term), itself dated two days before this letter.

The clock: a records-preservation deadline of October 1, 2026 — not a full-answer deadline. The letter separately invokes the Federal Records Act (44 U.S.C. §§ 3101, 3301, 3106(b)) and the criminal-penalty provision at 18 U.S.C. § 2071(b) covering willful destruction of federal records, and states: “the Committee expects to receive, by October 1, 2026, assurances in writing that DHS records, documents, data, and information have not been and will not be destroyed, modified, removed, transferred, or otherwise rendered inaccessible.” The 17 substantive document demands are requested “immediately” but are not tied to that specific calendar date — the explicit, dated deadline in this letter is narrowly the record-preservation certification, due the day after this entry’s as-of date (2026-09-30). As of 2026-09-30, one day before the deadline, no public DHS response to either the September 22 or September 24 letter was found via the sources searched (searched: democrats-homeland.house.gov correspondence page, casar.house.gov press releases, general web search for “DHS response Garces Perez letter”). This is a verified absence as of the stated date, not evidence DHS will not respond or has not responded privately to the Committee.

Committee letterhead confirms jurisdiction, not committee-wide consensus. The letter is on House Committee on Homeland Security letterhead (119th Congress), naming both Chairman Garbarino and Ranking Member Thompson in the header per standard Committee practice — but only Thompson and Committee Democrats signed it. This matches the oversight-letter pattern Committee Democrats (minority) use when the majority does not join.

Why This Matters

The September 24 letter is the one with actual investigative teeth among the two: it is issued under formal Committee authority, invokes federal records-preservation law with named criminal penalties, and sets the only calendar-dated deadline found in either letter. But that deadline governs only a preservation certification, not the release of the shooting’s underlying facts — a distinction easy to lose if “congressional letter sets deadline” is read as “congressional letter will produce answers by that date.”

Research Gaps

• Whether DHS responded to either letter by the stated deadlines (Sept. 28 for the 9 questions; Oct. 1 for records-preservation assurance) — check after 2026-10-01
• Whether any records-preservation assurance, once received, is itself made public
• Whether Committee Republicans joined any subsequent, bipartisan version of this inquiry

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• 2026-09-25–ice-agents-shot-at-least-21-people-trump-second-term