US officials face escalating demands to remove Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from American streets after federal agents killed two men who were not targets of enforcement action in less than a week. Advocacy groups, including the National Police Accountability Project and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, described the fatal shootings of Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas as extrajudicial killings.
Details of the Two Deadly Incidents
On 7 July, federal agents in unmarked vehicles pursued Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old builder originally from Mexico, in Houston as he drove his crew to their job site. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said agents were conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” but that Salgado, who had no criminal history, was not the intended target. Salgado had lived in the US for 35 years and was close to obtaining legal status, his family said.
Less than a week later, on Monday, an ICE official in Maine shot and killed Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old from Colombia. DHS said agents were conducting surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal. The office of Senator Angus King later told WMTV-8 that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin informed the senator that Durán was not the target.
Advocacy Groups Demand Accountability
“The bystander videos I watched make it clear that ICE agents carried out another extrajudicial public execution in Maine,” said Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, in a statement. “It’s clear that the only way to prevent ICE from killing us in the streets is to remove ICE from the streets.” She added that Congress can do so by freezing funding to the agency and limiting their jurisdiction.
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), said: “This is not public safety. This is not enforcement. It is state violence with the direct intent of terrorizing communities through fear, intimidation, and deadly violence.” She demanded a full, independent, and transparent investigation and accountability for every official responsible.
Conflicting Accounts of the Shootings
Witnesses to the Maine shooting said Durán told agents he tried to stop his vehicle as they pulled him out, and his wife and daughter saw the aftermath. In the Texas case, the three men in the vehicle denied DHS claims that Salgado weaponized his vehicle to run over an ICE official, stating shots were fired from the sides of the van.
The DHS alleged that Salgado “weaponized his vehicle” in an effort to run over an ICE official, a claim disputed by witnesses. The agency also claimed that in Maine, the vehicle attempted to flee and an officer discharged his weapon fearing for public safety.
Temporary Pause on Vehicle Stops
On Tuesday, federal immigration officials were instructed to stop pulling over vehicles until further notice, The Guardian reported. Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, told Fox News it was a temporary pause while officials look into the incidents and determine whether training should be improved.
America’s Voice, a progressive immigration reform advocacy group, argued that a “partial, temporary pause” would not solve the underlying problem: “A hastily hired, undertrained force of armed agents operating under exorbitant, politically driven arrest quotas.”
Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, said: “In America we don’t kill people in the streets because of the way they look. This pattern of unaccountable killings is unconscionable and unconstitutional and must end, period.”
Pattern of Fatal Shootings Under Trump
The killing of Durán was the 11th fatal shooting by federal immigration officials since Trump’s second term began, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, according to a Guardian review of public reports. The DHS said: “We are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets. We will not disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics.”
