An ICE agent has fatally shot a Colombian national during an immigration enforcement operation in the US state of Maine, a week after the agency used deadly force against another migrant in a Texas traffic stop.
In the latest incident, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said agents were watching an address for a person with a final order of removal in Biddeford at around 07:00 EDT (11:00 GMT) on Monday.
When ICE tried to stop someone driving from that address, “the vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon”, ICE said, adding “the driver of the vehicle was struck”.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered in Biddeford afterwards.
ICE did not share details on why the officer feared for safety.
Maine’s top prosecutor said the incident involved an officer from ICE’s Enforcement Removal Operations department, and the agent has been placed on leave pending an investigation.
Initial statements indicate “the subject attempted to flee in a vehicle in the direction of the officer and was fatally shot”, said Maine’s Attorney General Aaron Frey, a Democrat.
The name of the deceased man is not being released until he is formally identified and his family are notified, the statement added. Although investigators have not named him, his neighbours have identified him in US media as Joan Sebastian Guerrero.
Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, who represents the region in the House of Representatives, also identified the man as Guerrero and added that she has a three-year-old daughter who “will never see her dad again”.
The inspector general’s office for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, is taking over the investigation, according to Senator Susan Collins, a Republican representing Maine.
Fellow Maine Senator Angus King, a political independent, said he was initially told by DHS chief Markwayne Mullin that the person who was shot dead was a target of an arrest warrant in an immigration operation.
But hours later, King said Mullin called him to say the man was actually not the target of a warrant, his office told the BBC.
Maine Governor Janet Mills said the death of a man the government was not even looking for “makes this tragedy even more disturbing and infuriating”.
“It underscores the reckless and haphazard manner in which immigration enforcement operations are being conducted in Maine and across the country,” she wrote on X.
