Federal prosecutors have charged one of the illegal immigrants shot by Border Patrol in Oregon last week with assaulting a federal officer, saying he repeatedly rammed his pickup truck into a government rental car, forcing officers to react.
Authorities believed Luis Nino-Moncada was associated with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, and was driving the vehicle with a woman prosecutors said was part of a TdA prostitution ring.
When Border Patrol agents in Portland moved in to arrest the woman, Mr. Nino-Moncada tried to bash his way out by repeatedly reversing into an unoccupied car.
Both the woman and Mr. Nino-Moncada were shot by one of the Border Patrol agents. Both managed to flee in their vehicle but were picked up by local police after they reported being shot.
The shooting came a day after Renee Good was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis during anti-ICE protests in that city.
Attorney General Pam Bondi described the prosecution in Portland as a way to send a signal.
“Anyone who crosses the red line of assaulting law enforcement will be met with the full force of this Justice Department,” she said.
She also said Mr. Nino-Moncada shouldn’t have been free in the first place.
According to an FBI affidavit filed in the new case, Mr. Nino-Moncada had been ordered deported by an immigration judge in 2024.
The woman with Mr. Nino-Moncada, meanwhile, was arrested for sneaking into the U.S. in 2023. She was served a summons to check in with ICE and was released under Biden policies at the time. She never checked in, making her eligible for immigration arrest, the FBI said.
The links to TdA are still being investigated, FBI Special Agent Daniel Jeffreys said in the affidavit.
He also said there was no body camera footage of the encounter between six Border Patrol agents and the two migrants, nor have investigators found any social media or surveillance footage that captured the encounter.
Agent Jeffreys had interviewed four of the six Border Patrol agents, and at least two of them said they feared for their safety and that of others nearby once the vehicle ramming began. Agent Jeffreys said one agent reported that it seemed Mr. Nino-Moncada had “floored the gas pedal.”
Photos of the rented blue Hyundai sedan that was smashed in the incident show it with major damage, including pummeled-in doors and the front driver’s side corner a wreck of twisted metal.
The shooting sparked immediate condemnation of Homeland Security by Democrats.
“ICE has done nothing but inject terror, chaos, and cruelty into our communities,” said Rep. Maxine Dexter, a Democrat who represents the area in Congress. “ICE must immediately end all active operations in Portland.”
Homeland Security officials, though, said blame lay with the illegal immigrants and pro-sanctuary politicians who have made attacks on ICE seem acceptable.
Agent Jeffreys said that when local police responded to the summons by Mr. Nino-Moncada after he was shot, he repeatedly told them “F- – – ICE.”
The lack of footage of the Portland confrontation stands in contrast with Ms. Good’s slaying in Minneapolis, where several videos have emerged showing different angles of the incident.
That extensive evidence has done little to produce a consensus, however, with those inclined to support President Trump’s immigration policies seeing Ms. Good’s driving toward an ICE officer as justification for the shooting and those who oppose Mr. Trump calling the slaying a “murder.”
