Chicago Woman Shot by Border Patrol to Testify in Congress

Marimar Martinez, shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, is scheduled to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee’s Washington hearing on April 22, her attorney confirmed Thursday.

Attorney Christopher Parente said Martinez’s appearance is voluntary. It’s the first time she’ll face an official congressional committee. That’s a step beyond the February forum where she told lawmakers she wanted federal agents held accountable and demanded an apology from the Trump administration.

The April 22 session is the second day of hearings organized around a 61-day government shutdown. Republicans on the committee are framing the shutdown as Democrats’ fault. Committee Democrats countered by requesting that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and border czar Tom Homan also appear. None of the three are compelled to show.

Committee Chair Andrew Garbarino, a New York Republican, didn’t pretend to welcome the request. “The Committee does not believe this request to be in good faith and will be used, instead, as an attempt to politicize national security and gaslight the American public,” he wrote in letters sent Wednesday. Garbarino also took aim at Illinois Democratic committee member Rep. Delia Ramirez, saying she “refused to let witnesses answer any questions” during a Feb. 10 session and had stated that “DHS cannot be reformed; it must be dismantled.”

Martinez was shot on Oct. 4 by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum during what federal authorities described as an immigration enforcement operation in Brighton Park, a predominantly Latino neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest Side. She’s publicly described Exum as her “attempted executioner.” Federal charges of impeding law enforcement were filed against her after the shooting, then dropped, as the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

She’s been pushing her case in Washington for months. On Feb. 3, Martinez appeared at a public congressional forum organized after two Minnesotans were killed by federal immigration officers. She told lawmakers then that she is “not a domestic terrorist” and wanted the Trump administration to say so plainly. On March 3, she attended a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, standing five rows behind then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as Sen. Richard Blumenthal pressed Noem to say the shooting was wrong. Noem wouldn’t.

That non-answer hasn’t quieted Martinez or the people backing her in Brighton Park. The Oct. 4 shooting drew swift attention from Illinois lawmakers and immigrant rights organizations. It’s hardened into one of the sharpest pressure points in the national argument over federal immigration enforcement, and it’s not going away.

Parente confirmed the April 22 date. He didn’t elaborate on what Martinez plans to say, but her record before lawmakers is consistent: she wants accountability, she wants an apology, and she doesn’t want the federal government to define her as a threat. Those three demands have driven every public appearance she’s made since the shooting.

The hearing structure itself tells you something about 2026 Washington. Republicans want to use the 16-session proceedings to pin the shutdown on Democrats. Democrats want Miller and Homan in the same room as Martinez. Neither side is hiding the ball. Garbarino’s letter made clear he thinks the whole exercise is a setup. Democrats say the House Homeland Security Committee’s hearings should reflect what’s actually happening to people like Martinez.

Brighton Park won’t forget Oct. 4. Five shots. Federal charges filed and then dropped. A Border Patrol agent who still hasn’t faced criminal prosecution. A woman who keeps showing up in Washington anyway.

Martinez’s April 22 testimony is the next chapter.