ICE Does Melt: A Viral Lawyer Says Prosecutions of Immigration Agents Are Coming. Here's What's Already Real.

Florida WatchTop News
Written by Joseph Jackson

State prosecutors in Minnesota and Texas have already charged ICE officers. A Houston grand jury is weighing the July killing of a construction foreman. Almost every one of these cases depends on video someone kept recording.

By Joseph Jackson | TAMPA (Nov. 6, 2026)

The short version

  • Minnesota prosecutors charged two ICE officers this spring, one for pointing a gun at drivers and one in a nonfatal shooting.

  • A Harris County grand jury indicted ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales on Oct. 30 for running over a fleeing man in Houston.

  • The agent who killed Houston construction foreman Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in July has not been charged. The DA plans to take the case to the grand jury after Thanksgiving.

  • You have the right to record ICE and police in public. In Florida, step back 25 feet if an officer tells you to, and keep filming.

An 18-post Threads thread from California trial lawyer Daphne Delvaux, who posts as @themamattorney, passed 575,000 views this week. In it she warns ICE employees that state criminal charges could reach them years from now. "The question is not if, but when," she wrote.

Her thread mixes legal argument with prediction. FMNN checked the parts that are facts.

What's already happened

Minnesota, April. On April 16, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty charged ICE officer Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with two counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, NPR reported. According to the complaint, during Operation Metro Surge in February, Morgan drove on a highway shoulder and pointed a handgun at two people in another car. Morgan told state investigators he feared for his safety, NPR reported. Moriarty said the conduct was "well beyond the scope of their authority," the Washington Examiner reported. A nationwide warrant was issued for Morgan's arrest. NPR reported these were the first charges against a federal immigration officer for on-duty actions during the Minnesota crackdown. The two people in the other car took video showing the SUV's license plate, and investigators used it to identify him.

Minnesota, May. Prosecutors charged ICE agent Christian Castro with assault and falsely reporting a crime over the January nonfatal shooting of Venezuelan immigrant Julio Sosa-Celis, The Center Square and CNN reported. Prosecutors said the evidence contradicted the federal account of the shooting. Federal officials called the case politically motivated, The Center Square reported.

Renee Good and Alex Pretti. No charges have been filed yet in the January killings of these two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis. Minnesota sued the federal government in March for withholding evidence. In July, Moriarty said prosecutors had finally received body-camera video, statements and Good's car, AP reported. Moriarty did not seek re-election, and Hennepin County voters chose a new county attorney on Tuesday, CBS Minnesota reported.

Houston, Oct. 30. A Harris County grand jury indicted ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales, 33, on a second-degree felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, his vehicle, the Texas Tribune and AP reported. Prosecutors say Morales ran over Miguel Parra-Hernandez, 48, as he fled on foot on Oct. 10. Parra-Hernandez broke his leg. District Attorney Sean Teare said surveillance video from a nearby business and Morales's own body camera contradict ICE's account that Parra-Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle. ICE called the allegations "RECKLESS and FALSE" and argued that local officials lack authority to investigate federal officers acting in their duties, according to AP via WBTV. Morales's attorney, David Lindenmuth, said the incident was an accident and that the DA "invented a crime out of thin air," AP reported. Teare said Parra-Hernandez had lived in Harris County for more than 30 years with no deportation order or criminal record. According to his family and the immigrant-rights group FIEL, the man ICE said it was hunting that day has been dead since 2017.

Houston, the foreman. On July 7, an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, a construction foreman who was driving his crew to a job site. DHS says he rammed a vehicle and the agent fired in self-defense. Passengers in the van dispute that account, AP reported. A bystander filmed the aftermath, CNN reported. The Texas Tribune identified the agent as Gregory Feathers, a retiree whom ICE rehired. Feathers has not been charged. Teare told the Texas Tribune that the same grand jury that indicted Morales will decide on Feathers, and that his office is working with "laser focus" to finish its investigation before Thanksgiving and present it afterward. The thread says that decision is coming soon. Teare's own timeline puts it after Thanksgiving at the earliest.

What the law actually says

FMNN analysis. This is general information, not legal advice.

  • State charges against federal agents are real, and they're hard. A federal officer can move a state case to federal court and claim Supremacy Clause immunity. The immunity applies when the officer was acting under federal authority and the conduct was "necessary and proper" to the job (In re Neagle, 1890). Delvaux describes this correctly. Courts usually ask whether the officer's actions were objectively reasonable. Legal experts quoted by Fox 9 have said state cases may be difficult to win. The Minnesota Star Tribune called the situation unprecedented.

  • The president cannot pardon state crimes. True. A presidential pardon covers only federal offenses.

  • Arizona v. United States (2012) did say that, as a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable person to remain in the U.S. Unlawful entry is still a federal misdemeanor.

  • "Following orders." U.S. v. Calley is a military court-martial case. Its principle, that an unlawful order is no defense, is widely recognized. Civilian ICE agents fall under civilian criminal law, though.

  • Whistleblower Protection Act, 5 U.S.C. 2302(b)(9)(D) protects federal employees from retaliation for refusing to obey an order that would require them to break the law. The citation is accurate.

  • Statute of limitations. No state has a time limit on murder. The rules for kidnapping vary by state.

Record everything: your right to film ICE and police

Several of the cases above depended on video: a highway driver's phone in Minnesota, a shop's camera and an agent's body camera in Houston, a bystander's video after the Salgado Araujo shooting. That video is how these cases moved forward.

FMNN urges readers to always document their interactions with federal agents and police, whether they are the one being stopped or just watching. Here's what the law says.

You have the right to record. The Supreme Court has never ruled directly on the question. But the Cato Institute notes that every federal appeals court to decide it, including the 11th Circuit, which covers Florida, has found that the First Amendment protects recording police doing their jobs in public. The ACLU of Illinois says the same right covers federal immigration agents. DHS disagrees. Then-Secretary Kristi Noem called recording on-duty agents an act of violence, and the Justice Department has argued in court that there is no constitutional right to film officers. No law passed since then makes filming ICE illegal.

Florida's 25-foot "Halo Law." Since Jan. 1, 2025, it has been a misdemeanor in Florida to approach within 25 feet of police, firefighters or EMS workers who are performing their duties, after they warn you to stay back, if you intend to impede, threaten or harass them, the Tallahassee Democrat and Miami Herald reported. The law does not ban filming, but you may have to do it from farther away. People have already been arrested under it, WUFT reported. If you're told to back up, back up and keep recording.

How to document safely:

  • Film openly from a distance. Don't touch, block or physically interfere with an arrest.

  • Say out loud that you're recording, and say the date, time and location.

  • Capture badge numbers, agency markings, vehicle plates and the faces of the officers. Narrate what you see.

  • Back it up right away to cloud storage or a group chat, so it survives if your phone is taken or broken. Lock your phone with a passcode, not your face or fingerprint.

  • You don't have to unlock your phone or hand it over without a warrant. Say that calmly; don't physically resist.

  • Afterward, write down what happened while it's fresh. Get contact information from other witnesses.

  • Don't edit the original file. Share copies with lawyers, prosecutors or the press, and keep the original.

  • In Florida, record officers openly in public places. The state's two-party consent law for audio covers private conversations. Officers working in public generally do not have a privacy expectation there.

If you're arrested or your phone is seized, ask for a lawyer.

What comes next

Democrats take control of the House and Senate committees in January. Incoming House Oversight chair Robert Garcia has named DHS and ICE abuses as a priority (see FMNN's "Lawyer Up" story). The killings of Good and Pretti are expected to be the focus of hearings. Any video the public saved could become evidence.

Tip credit: Daphne Delvaux (@themamattorney), The Court Womb on Substack.

Sources

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