Immigrant shot by ICE agents in Glen Burnie pleads guilty

A Portuguese immigrant who was shot and critically wounded by immigration agents on Christmas Eve in Glen Burnie pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to damaging government property, with the judge in the case sentencing him to time already served.

Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins, of Baltimore, admitted he damaged government property when he rammed his work van into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles that surrounded him as he was preparing to do electrical work. The 30-year-old had also been charged with resisting, opposing, impeding or interfering with federal officers, but that charge was dropped as a result of his plea deal.

“The court has some skepticism about some of what the government has presented based on some individuals who have not been identified or appeared in court,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles D. Austin said during the sentencing hearing, in an apparent reference to federal agents.

“I think the time he has already spent in custody has been plenty,” the judge added.

Prosecutors argued Sousa-Martins should be sentenced to up to six months in prison because they said he endangered federal agents and bystanders when he tried to flee immigration authorities. Sousa-Martins’ attorneys asked the judge to sentence him to time served because nobody else was harmed during the encounter.

“Mr. Sousa-Martins was the only individual who was gravely injured when ICE officers shot at him at least 13 times and struck him twice,” Assistant Federal Public Defenders Jessica Sawadogo and Shari Derrow wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

According to court records, two ICE vans sustained a combined $17,000 of damage. Sousa-Martins was ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution.

The prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Goldaris, at one point likened the incident to a “fender bender,” but argued that Austin should send a message to Sousa-Martins and others that they must follow law enforcement orders.

With criminal charges from the Dec. 24 shooting resolved, Sousa-Martins still faces immigration proceedings that could lead to his removal from the country.

According to an FBI agent’s affidavit, ICE agents were “performing field operations” in the parking lot of a Lowe’s home improvement store in Glen Burnie when they spotted a white work van. Agents ran the tags and determined the vehicle was registered to Sousa-Martins, who authorities said had overstayed his visa.

The encounter escalated after agents followed Sousa-Martins’ van and boxed it in on West Court, according to authorities.

After agents smashed Sousa-Martins’ window, he fled for a narrow path between two condominium buildings. Three agents opened fire, striking Sousa-Martins’ van, which careened down the corridor and crashed into a tree behind the condos.

“I was scared. I saw guns. I wasn’t sure if they were police or immigration,” Sousa-Martins said in court Monday, adding that he had seen news reports of immigration agents shooting people. “I thought I was a dead man.”

Sousa-Martins was struck in the back and right thigh by agents’ bullets, which damaged his spine and punctured a lung, according to court records. One of the bullets, Sawadogo said in court, remains lodged in Sousa-Martins’ back. His lawyers have said he later suffered medical neglect in custody.

The violent episode is the only known shooting by ICE agents in Maryland, preceding two fatal shootings by immigration officers in Minnesota two weeks later. In Minneapolis, agents killed American citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti, which garnered national headlines and caused widespread outcry.

ICE’s accounts of the three shootings described the persons shot as aggressors who caused agents to fear for their lives and fire defensively.

The shootings in Minneapolis were captured on video that undercut ICE’s story. There was no known footage of the encounter in Glen Burnie.

Originally, ICE claimed that there was a passenger in Sousa-Martins’ van who suffered whiplash. But The Banner revealed that the second person injured, Salvadoran immigrant Salomon Antonio Serrano-Esquivel, was arrested by ICE hours earlier and was in agents’ custody at the time of the shooting. Local police disputed ICE’s original account, and the federal agency eventually changed its story.

The identities of the agents who opened fire have not been revealed in court papers or by Anne Arundel County Police, who are investigating the shooting. In addition to the local police probe, ICE said after the shooting that it was reviewing the agents’ actions. The status of that review is unclear.

On Monday in court, Austin chided federal prosecutors for failing to produce any testimony underlying the criminal charges, saying he knew of other cases where immigration agents’ accounts had been revealed to be less than truthful.

“This would not be the first case where an affidavit was found not to adequately capture the circumstances,” Austin said.

It was not immediately clear what Sousa-Martins’ conviction would mean for his immigration case, but his criminal defense attorneys said he faced the possibility of deportation. The defense lawyers said that a sentence of more than six months in federal prison would have had consequences for his immigration proceedings.

After the hearing, U.S. Marshals led Sousa-Martins away in handcuffs, his future uncertain. His public defenders referred questions about his release to his immigration attorney, who could not immediately be reached for comment.

Adam Crandell, an immigration attorney not involved in Sousa-Martins’ case, said a criminal conviction can impact an immigrant’s petition for legal status but that it depends on the crime and sentence.

“Congress doesn’t say, ‘If you’re convicted of destroying government property, you’re ineligible for a green card.’ Congress says, ‘If you’re convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude, then you’re ineligible for a green card,’” Crandell said, explaining that the definition of “moral turpitude” has been left to the courts to interpret.

According to his attorneys’ memorandum, Sousa-Martins came to America as a 13-year-old to visit his father, who had left Portugal when Sousa-Martins was young. He enjoyed the first visit over summer vacation but was happy to return to his mother back home. His attorneys said he did not see a subsequent visit during winter break as significant.

“I was excited because I had never seen snow before,” Sousa-Martins said Monday in court.

But when that visit was supposed to end, his father took his passport and told him he was staying in America, the memorandum said. “Worse, his father had a drinking problem that made him abusive and volatile, eventually kicking Mr. Sousa-Martins out of his home when Mr. Sousa-Martins was 16.”

Sousa-Martins told an FBI agent that he spent his adolescence in Newark, New Jersey. In court papers, his attorney wrote that Sousa-Martins moved in with a friend, learned English and finished high school. After earning a general contractor’s license, he moved to Baltimore, fell in love and bought a home.

He said in court that he’d spent more time in America, which he called his “home,” than in Portugal, which he described as his “country of origin.”

Sousa-Martins and his partner have two young children who have celebrated birthdays while he has been in custody.

He said his 1-year-old is struggling to walk without his father to teach him. His 4-year-old, meanwhile, has been acting up in school and asking his mother to let him sleep in the living room and watch movies like he did with his father on weekend nights.

“I am overwhelmed by the uncertainty of what’s going to happen to me and my family,” Sousa-Martins said.