The police report tells a very different story than the one media outlets ran for weeks.
Martin Soto, 31, wasn’t nabbed by ICE while buying diapers. He was arrested by Kearny, New Jersey, police on February 1, 2026, for allegedly attacking a woman in a violent domestic assault — then transferred to ICE custody the next day, according to records obtained by the Oversight Project and shared with The Daily Wire.
His wife, Gabriela Soto, built a national campaign around the claim that her husband “was abducted” by ICE agents while on a diaper run for their 11-month-old son. She led weeks of protests and a hunger strike at Delaney Hall ICE detention center. Media outlets amplified her story without checking the arrest records.
The police report shows Martin Soto “purposely” caused “bodily injury” to an unnamed female victim “specifically by using his hands, both opened and closed to strike” her “in her face, causing minor scratches and cuts to her face and neck.”
Soto then allegedly “placed a hand over” her “mouth so she could not scream for help,” according to the report.
The Daily Wire could not immediately confirm the identity of the assault victim.
Scott Mechkowski, a visiting fellow for deportation studies at the Oversight Project and former ICE New York field office deputy director, said the entire sob story unraveled the moment investigators pulled the actual arrest records.
“The public was told a good man was grabbed by ICE while buying diapers. The record says he was arrested by Kearny police, handed to Hudson County, taken into ICE custody, and detained at Delaney Hall while charged with assaulting the very woman who then made him a headline,” Mechkowski told The Daily Wire.
Gabriela Soto raised more than $67,000 on GoFundMe for her husband’s legal defense. In a column published last month, she wrote: “Martin has committed no harm.”
The facts say otherwise.
Martin Soto crossed the Arizona border illegally in January 2024 and was processed for immediate deportation under expedited removal, law enforcement sources told The Daily Wire. He claimed fear of returning to Peru and was released from custody by April 2024.
Nearly two years later, Kearny police arrested him for simple assault stemming from the domestic violence incident. ICE officers visited the Hudson County Correctional Center on February 2 and took Soto into custody.
Gabriela launched protests in May and June, blocking ICE vans outside Delaney Hall and claiming the facility was retaliating against her husband for her activism. She told NJ.com she started the protest “to close Delaney Hall and free every detainee” inside.
“If I have a miscarriage because of this pressure, I will sue them,” she said at one protest. “I am tired of them controlling the situation. He is in that van. I saw him resisting to get in the van; they forced him in there, two big ass guards.”
Media outlets ran with Gabriela’s version of events for weeks — no questions asked. She claimed she “suddenly got a phone call from a number listed as ‘prison/jail'” on February 1, “after Martin stepped out to get diapers for our 11-month-old son.”
“My heart dropped,” she wrote. “When I answered, I was terrified about what had happened.”
At that time, her husband was still in Kearny police custody following the domestic assault arrest. He wasn’t moved to Delaney Hall until later — where inmates claiming to be “starving” during the hunger strike were actually purchasing snacks including sushi and clams from the commissary, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
Mechkowski said the pattern repeats across detention centers nationwide.
“This is the pattern: a sympathetic claim built to go viral, while the facts sit unread in a file. Delaney Hall was inspected and cleared, its officers branded jailers of the innocent on stories that collapse the moment you check the record. This is one example; there are many.”
The charges remain allegations. The case has not been proven in court.
