\n<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has repeatedly accused immigrants and protesters of \u201cweaponizing\u201d their vehicles to \u201cassault\u201d federal immigration agents, a claim used to justify arrests and deadly shootings by officers.<\/p>\n
But a Guardian review of 26 cases that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has promoted as evidence of a surge in \u201cvehicular attacks\u201d reveals most of those claims have fallen apart under scrutiny, with the accusations consistently disproven by evidence or rejected in court. Only one of the 26 cases has resulted in an assault conviction, according to court records and information shared by prosecutors.<\/p>\n
The findings come as DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are facing intense scrutiny over the back-to-back fatal shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Joan Sebasti\u00e1n Dur\u00e1n Guerrero in Maine. In both cases, ICE officers killed the men during attempted traffic stops, with DHS arguing the men had endangered officers and the public with their vehicles \u2013 claims that witnesses have rejected.<\/p>\n
DHS has repeatedly claimed its officers have faced a \u201c3,300% increase in vehicle attacks\u201d under Donald Trump\u2019s second term, but has not provided evidence to support that figure and has not responded to requests for a list of cases.<\/p>\n
To better understand how the government\u2019s vehicle assault allegations have been adjudicated over time, the Guardian reviewed the most detailed list DHS has put out: a February press release asserting agents have experienced \u201cmore than 180 vehicle attacks\u201d since Trump took office. The 2,100-word release provided summaries of 23 incidents from across the country from June 2025 to January 2026, saying it was a \u201cnon-exhaustive list\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Guardian looked at records for each case and contacted local and federal authorities and immigration and defense attorneys for more details. We identified 26 people accused in the cases of using their vehicles to threaten, assault or injure immigration officers. Five of them were shot by officers during the encounters, one fatally.<\/p>\n
The review reveals a stunning failure by DHS and prosecutors to prove the government\u2019s initial allegations of violence in those cases.<\/p>\n
The review showed:<\/p>\n
Fifteen of the 26 people accused of vehicle attacks never faced federal criminal charges over the incidents, and 11 of the 26 people did.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Eight people who were charged had their cases dismissed, including one person who received a \u201cdeferred prosecution\u201d, meaning charges will be dropped if the defendant meets certain conditions.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
One person has a pending assault charge; one pleaded guilty to assault; and one was convicted of \u201cdestruction of government property\u201d, but acquitted of assault.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
DHS has repeatedly continued to promote people\u2019s cases as evidence of violence long after the original claims fell apart.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Cases were dropped or never charged in California, Colorado, Arizona, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, Maryland and Washington DC.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The people on the list who never faced federal charges include one man who DHS claimed was \u201cat large\u201d and one who was fatally shot by ICE during the encounter. The sole guilty plea for assault involves a man accused of reversing his car during a traffic stop and hitting an ICE officer in the leg.<\/p>\n
A waffle chart showing the breakdown of \u201cvehicles assault\u201d cases promoted by DHS<\/p>\n
DHS\u2019s list of 26 cases is not comprehensive. It excludes other high-profile incidents that took place in that timeframe, including dismissals of vehicle attack charges and the case of Renee Good in Minneapolis, who was also accused of \u201cweaponizing\u201d her car before an ICE officer killed her. The list also leaves out a man accused of \u201cdragging\u201d an agent with his car in a case that ended in an assault conviction in December.<\/p>\n
And there have been additional cases since the timeframe covered by the DHS list. Last week, the agency promoted a case of an alleged vehicle assault from April, but no charges have been filed in that case, either. This week, a Nebraska defendant pleaded guilty in a vehicle assault case.<\/p>\n
DHS did not respond to inquiries about the findings or questions about specific cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis whole narrative that all of these people were trying to run over officers with their cars is frankly bizarre and laughable,\u201d said Margaret Hellerstein, a California attorney. She represents Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a TikTok streamer who was shot by an officer in October during a traffic stop. He was charged with assault, with DHS claiming he began \u201cramming\u201d officers, but video showed the car did not appear to be moving when he was shot, and a judge threw out the case, saying his rights had been violated during the prosecution. The US attorney\u2019s office has appealed the dismissal.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Carlitos Ricardo Parias and his son, Ulises<\/span> Photograph: Obtained by The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just brazen to tell the same story over and over when it\u2019s been disproven over and over. They believe they have ultimate power and they\u2019re phoning in their explanations,\u201d Hellerstein said.<\/p>\n The review of cases also reveals a pattern of DHS blasting statements to the press and on social media, painting the subjects of their traffic stops as violent assailants without evidence and then failing to correct the record when those claims collapse under basic scrutiny.<\/p>\n In many of the cases, DHS has claimed drivers were attempting to flee or were resisting arrest and \u201crammed\u201d ICE vehicles in the process. Some statements include unsubstantiated claims that the alleged assaults were \u201cintentional\u201d or \u201cdeliberate\u201d.<\/p>\n The reasons for the dismissals or lack of charges varied and often were not formally disclosed by prosecutors. In one case, agents were found to have made contradictory statements about the encounter. In another, prosecutors failed to meet deadlines to hand over evidence. In some instances, videos disproved DHS\u2019s narratives.<\/p>\n Nine of the 26 vehicular attack cases touted by DHS were in Illinois, tied to Operation Midway Blitz, Trump\u2019s highly publicized crackdown in Chicago last fall. Of those nine, only one person faced assault charges, though a judge \u201cdeferred\u201d her prosecution in March, meaning it\u2019s on track for dismissal. Another person was issued a violation notice for misdemeanor assault, which is not a formal charge, and the violation was dismissed in January.<\/p>\n In one Illinois case, DHS said a man \u201cresisted arrest by intentionally ramming an officer\u2019s vehicle into a tree\u201d. But experts with an Illinois state accountability commission said it was more likely federal agents actually rammed their car into his car based on the damage sustained to both vehicles. No charges were filed, and the department said the man was placed in removal proceedings.<\/p>\n Juan Carlos Rodriguez Romero, a Minnesota father of two, was accused of committing a vehicle assault on 21 December. In a post on X that day, DHS called Rodriguez Romero an \u201cillegal alien from Cuba\u201d, though his lawyers have said he had entered the country lawfully through Customs and Border Protection and had work authorization and a pending immigration case.<\/p>\n After ICE pulled Rodriguez Romero over, he \u201cdrove off, striking one of the officers in his attempt to escape\u201d, according to DHS\u2019s initial account. Rodriguez Romero then pulled into a parking lot, hit two parked vehicles and \u201cbegan ramming his car into an ICE vehicle and struck ANOTHER ICE officer\u201d, DHS wrote.<\/p>\n One agent fired two rounds, but did not hit Rodriguez Romero, who eventually fled into his apartment building. DHS alleged that he subsequently \u201cbit\u201d one of the officers trying to arrest him.<\/p>\n Rodriguez Romero was charged with three counts of assault. But in court, the entire case collapsed.<\/p>\n <\/span>An evidence photo posted to X by DHS showing Juan Carlos Rodrigues Romero\u2019s white SUV.<\/span> Photograph: DHS via X<\/p>\n The alleged assaults and shooting were not caught on camera. But internal DHS records show an ICE officer, who was the \u201cteam leader\u201d during the arrest, gave an interview to an ICE official on the day of the incident contradicting DHS\u2019s social media claim that Rodriguez Romero struck an officer while driving away. The team leader repeatedly described Rodriguez Romero\u2019s vehicle as \u201calmost hitting\u201d an officer identified as Ibanez. The team leader did not say Rodriguez Romero struck an agent.<\/p>\n Four other agents on the scene also gave interviews that day, and only one alleged Rodriguez Romero hit Ibanez as he drove off, according to a filing from Rodriguez Romero\u2019s attorney summarizing the officer interviews. One officer was quoted saying Rodriguez Romero \u201cjust began to slowly pull out and continue driving\u201d.<\/p>\n Ibanez, during a DHS interview in February, claimed he was<\/em> hit in the shoulder by Rodriguez Romero\u2019s car. Ibanez was also the officer who later fired shots at Rodriguez Romero. Agents gave conflicting accounts of when the shots took place.<\/p>\n As the case moved forward, prosecutors specified the justice department was not alleging Rodriguez Romero \u201cmade contact\u201d with Ibanez when he first fled. Rodriguez Romero\u2019s attorneys said the government was admitting DHS had presented \u201cfalse testimony\u201d about the incident.<\/p>\n In June, nearly six months after the incident, the justice department moved to dismiss all the charges, including one stemming from the \u201cbiting\u201d claim, saying prosecutors had \u201cthoroughly reassessed the evidence in this case\u201d and were \u201cnot confident\u201d the government could secure a conviction.<\/p>\n Bruce Nestor, Rodriguez Romero\u2019s lawyer, noted the dismissal came after a judge ordered the justice department to disclose additional evidence, including information from agents\u2019 personal phones. The dismissal was \u201cwith prejudice\u201d, meaning prosecutors agreed they could not try the case at a later time.<\/p>\n \u201cI can only believe the government moved to dismiss with prejudice because there was even more evidence ICE officers had engaged in misconduct, or at minimum a coverup of a bad shooting,\u201d Nestor said. \u201cAll of DHS\u2019s claims were entirely unsupported and exposed by the contradictory statements of the federal agents \u2026 Mr Rodriguez Romero is lucky to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n The Minnesota US attorney\u2019s office declined to comment on the case.<\/p>\n Federal immigration officials were reportedly instructed last week to stop pulling over vehicles until further notice amid the outrage over the recent fatal shootings. But Trump said soon after that the stops should continue.<\/p>\n There have long been concerns these kinds of traffic encounters and law enforcement chases recklessly endanger the lives of the people being targeted, officers and bystanders, with critics arguing they are particularly unjustified for civil immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n Nestor argued that the narrative of immigrants \u201cweaponizing\u201d their vehicles to attack officers was rooted in the Trump administration\u2019s framing of immigrants as violent criminals: \u201cLooking at Houston and Maine, what possible motive would any of those victims or Mr Rodriguez Romero have to assault an ICE officer?\u201d<\/p>\n The pattern of the shootings, he said, reflected the \u201cculture of the agency and is a logical extension of the rhetoric by the president which suggests noncitizens are a deadly threat to be met with deadly force\u201d.<\/p>\n Even when people accused of assault are cleared of wrongdoing, the allegations can have lasting impacts.<\/p>\n Phillip Brown, a US citizen in Washington DC, was accused by DHS of making a \u201cdeliberate attempt to run [officers] down\u201d during a traffic stop in October. An officer fired shots at him during the stop, but missed. DHS\u2019s February press release continued to cite his case, even though the government\u2019s story fell apart days after the incident \u2013 and the only charge he ever faced was in DC superior court, accused of \u201cfleeing\u201d law enforcement. A judge quickly tossed that charge after learning that a police report had omitted the fact that an officer had shot at him.<\/p>\n Brown has been forced to deal with the double trauma of nearly losing his life and having the government repeatedly spread falsehoods about the encounter, said his attorney, E Paige White.<\/p>\n \u201cThe scariest thing is we can\u2019t get the truth from this administration even when it\u2019s staring us directly in the face,\u201d she said, \u201ceven when the judges and courts and systems put in place to actually determine what happened make a very clear decision. They refuse to be honest and that\u2019s terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Trump administration has repeatedly accused immigrants and protesters of \u201cweaponizing\u201d their vehicles to \u201cassault\u201d federal immigration agents, a claim used to justify arrests and deadly shootings by officers. But a Guardian review of 26 cases that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has promoted as evidence of a surge in \u201cvehicular attacks\u201d reveals most<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[11055,1891,13303,5081,1600,2466,5484,2081,720,14274],"class_list":{"0":"post-51337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-accusing","9":"tag-claims","10":"tag-customs","11":"tag-enforcement","12":"tag-fall","13":"tag-ice","14":"tag-immigrants","15":"tag-immigration","16":"tag-vehicles","17":"tag-weaponizing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How one case collapsed<\/h2>\n
\u2018We can\u2019t get the truth from this administration\u2019<\/h2>\n