ICE agent fatally shoots driver in Maine, 6 days after similar death in Texas

BIDDEFORD, Maine – US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers fatally shot a driver in a coastal town of Maine on July 13, less than a week after an ICE agent in Houston, Texas, shot and killed a man at a traffic stop during a deportation crackdown there.

Commenting on the July 13 shooting nearly 12 hours after the fact, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said an ICE officer, “fearing for public safety”, opened fire on the man when he attempted to flee agents as they tried to stop his vehicle.

The DHS statement made no mention of how the driver might have posed a threat.

The encounter occurred around 7am in Biddeford, Maine, about 24km south of the state’s largest city, Portland.

DHS, the parent agency of ICE, gave few other details, except to say that the agents involved were “conducting targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal”.

According to DHS, “an illegal alien departed the residence in a vehicle”, with ICE officers in pursuit.

The agency did not say whether the person seen leaving the residence was the same individual whose address was under surveillance.

DHS said the Biddeford Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation “responded to the scene”, but the statement did not assert, as has become typical in such cases, that federal law enforcement would lead the investigation.

Immigration advocates said the person shot was a 26-year-old Colombian man who was authorised to work in the US and had a Social Security number, though they did not name him or say how they were able to identify him.

“This is devastating, enraging and unacceptable,” the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine said in a joint statement.

Escalating enforcement actions

The latest ICE-involved killing in Maine, and the one on July 7 in Texas, brought to at least seven the number of people shot dead during immigration enforcement operations since January 2025, when President Donald Trump returned to office and launched a campaign of mass deportations.

Immigration round-ups have increased even more nationwide in recent weeks.

Since the beginning of June, ICE arrests in Maine have more than quadrupled to around 70 per day in early July, according to internal ICE data shared with Reuters by a source.

For much of July 13, what few official details were known of the latest deadly ICE shooting came from elected officials citing second-hand information shared with them by various law enforcement authorities.

US Senator Angus King of Maine, a political independent who caucuses in the Senate with the Democrats, told reporters that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had informed him that the person shot dead by ICE was a man in his 20s who had “weaponised” his vehicle against officers.

According to Mullin, King said, the man killed was the subject of an “arrest warrant based upon his immigration status”.

But the senator’s spokesperson said Mullin later conveyed to him new information that the victim was not the target of a warrant.

Eyewitness account

One eyewitness, Daniel Boucher, 71, a caregiver and part-time drafter who lives in downtown Biddeford, said in an interview that he was on the second floor of his apartment when he heard what sounded like firecrackers around 7.30am.

He ran to the window and saw a white sport utility vehicle ram a smaller white car more than once, causing the car to change direction.

At that point, Boucher said, he saw an ICE officer get out of the SUV and try to open the other car’s door before pulling a man out.

The man, whom Boucher described as looking like a younger man, had blood on his face and his head, and the officer put him on the ground.

“I remember hearing the victim say, ‘But I tried to stop’,” Boucher said, before the wounded man appeared to stop breathing.

Boucher recounted one of the officers on the scene as appearing “very distraught, almost in shock”.

A video clip verified by Reuters showed the white car appearing to meander directionless, with two men wearing vests on foot trying to stop it, but it was unclear whether the footage was recorded before or after the shooting.

Protests break out

Later in the day, about 200 demonstrators gathered at a park, holding signs and chanting, before marching towards the Biddeford office of Republican US Senator Susan Collins, who is running for re-election in 2026.

Ten protesters entered the building’s foyer, chanting “ICE out!” and “Vote her out!” and screaming obscenities. There were no arrests or violence.

The shooting came six days after an ICE agent fatally shot a man identified as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston during a traffic stop, sparking protests in the city’s heavily Hispanic East End.

ICE said in a statement after that shooting that Salgado, a Mexican national living in the US illegally for more than three decades, rammed a law enforcement vehicle with his van and attempted to run down an officer who fired in self-defense.

The agency offered no evidence to support its account. In similar instances over the past year, initial ICE and DHS statements about the use of force have been contradicted by video footage or other evidence, sometimes in court. REUTERS