ICE halts vehicle stops after second fatal shooting in days

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered immigration agents to temporarily halt most vehicle stops during deportation operations, according to a department official, after a fatal shooting of a man in Maine reignited concerns about the agency’s tactics.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will suspend vehicle stops except for those targeting serious criminal cases, said a DHS official who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The policy change comes after the second fatal shooting by immigration agents in a week. It will remain in effect until ICE officers receive new training on vehicle stops. Fox News earlier reported the policy change.

In Maine on Monday, DHS said ICE officers were conducting surveillance at the last known residence of a person under a deportation order when they attempted to stop a vehicle as it was leaving the property. The driver tried to flee and an officer fired “fearing for public safety,” according to DHS.

Independent Maine Senator Angus King said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the man who died — Joan Sebastian Guerrero — was not the target of the deportation operation.

Federal officials have released few public details about Guerrero or his connection, if any, to the person officers had been trying to arrest. The incident occurred in Biddeford, a small city about 18 miles (29 kilometers) southwest of Portland.

Separately on Tuesday, a 28-year-old man running from “an encounter” with federal immigration agents at a gas station in St. Augustine, Florida was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer, the New York Times reported, citing a state highway patrol spokesman.

Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins said she had urged Mullin Monday night to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops.

“While the investigation of the Biddeford shooting is not yet complete, it raises sufficient critical questions,” Collins, who is seeking a sixth Senate term in November, said in a statement. She had earlier called for a “full and impartial investigation” and said Mullin had told her the Boston office of Homeland Security’s inspector general, working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was leading the federal inquiry.

The shooting came days after immigration agents fatally shot a Mexican construction worker during a traffic stop in Houston. Federal officials said Lorenzo Salgado Araujo tried to use his vehicle as a weapon before he was shot, an account disputed by witnesses.

The two shootings in a week have drawn renewed attention to the use of deadly force by immigration officers at a time when Mullin is pushing for stepped up arrests across the country, reportedly to 2,000 per day. DHS also is plowing ahead with initiatives to detain migrants, including opening up detention centers.

By Monday evening, hundreds of people had gathered for a candlelight vigil in Biddeford. Mourners left candles and flowers near the site of the encounter, attaching notes to a gate at the edge of a park with messages like “Maine grieves.”

Local groups called for more protests into Tuesday, including outside an ICE field office in the region.

The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine have described the person who was shot as a 26-year-old Colombian man and said that the shooting came amid a recent increase in federal immigration activity across the state.

Ruben Torres, advocacy and policy manager at the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, says reports his group have received indicate that immigration arrests in Maine are now averaging about 10 a day, up from about five before May.

Witnesses told the Portland Press Herald they heard gunshots and saw officers trying to stop the man’s vehicle afterward as it rolled. One witness said the driver emerged from the vehicle bleeding from the head after the shooting.

King said the officers involved were not wearing body cameras and called for a transparent investigation with meaningful participation by state and local authorities.

“Were officers threatened?” and “were the threats rising to the level that justified deadly force? That’s what this investigation is all about,” King said. “I certainly intend to, stay after it, to do everything I can to be sure the investigation is as transparent and thorough as possible, and that our state and local officials aren’t frozen out.”

Earlier on Monday, demonstrators gathered near the scene and outside Senator Collins’ local office, reflecting growing anger over the administration’s immigration crackdown.

The shooting adds to mounting scrutiny of immigration officers’ use of force as President Donald Trump’s administration expands deportation operations across the country. In several recent cases, official accounts of confrontations with federal agents have later been challenged by mobile phone video, surveillance footage or other testimony. Earlier this year, video of another fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis of U.S. citizen Renee Good also raised questions about the agency’s version of events.

At Monday night’s vigil, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Hannah Pingree accused federal authorities of continuing what she described as a “quiet surge” in immigration enforcement across Maine, even after officials said “Operation Catch of the Day” in January had come to an end.

“I am here because I want ICE out of Maine,” Pingree said.

Kathleen Sullivan, an 82-year-old from Freeport, said she attended because many immigrants were too fearful to do so themselves.

“There are hundreds of immigrants who are afraid to come out,” Sullivan said, adding she wanted “to be able to stand out here and make some noise and carry our signs and be in solidarity.”

The shooting immediately reverberated through Maine politics, where Democrats are racing to choose a new Senate nominee to run in November’s election after Graham Platner withdrew from the race last week following sexual assault allegations.

Several candidates seeking to challenge Collins seized on the shooting. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said it was “time to get ICE off our streets.”

Former state Senate President Troy Jackson renewed his call to abolish ICE, saying immigrant communities have been under attack and living in fear. Nirav Shah, the former director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, called ICE “a broken, unaccountable, rogue agency.”

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