A United States federal immigration agent fatally shot a man in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday morning, marking the second time in less than a week that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have used deadly force, reigniting a wave of protests and demands for accountability over the Trump administration’s expanding deportation campaign.
Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat, confirmed the death in a social media post shortly after the shooting occurred near the intersection of Pool and Hill streets in the coastal city of about 23,000 people, roughly 15 miles southwest of Portland.
“This morning a shooting occurred in Biddeford. A person was killed. ICE was involved,” Fecteau wrote, adding that state police and the Department of Public Safety were on scene and that he expected the FBI to investigate as well.
The man killed was identified by the advocacy group Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition as a 26-year-old Colombian national who was authorised to work in the United States and held a Social Security number.
Mufalo Chitam, the coalition’s executive director, said the man had been on his way to his job when the shooting occurred. “It’s a young family, and he was leaving to go to work,” Chitam told the Associated Press.
‘Weaponised the Vehicle,’ Homeland Security Tells Senator
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him directly that the agent opened fire after the man attempted to use his car as a weapon against ICE officers who were pursuing him for deportation.
“He was in a vehicle, pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was ‘weaponised’ the vehicle, and was shot by an ICE agent,” King said, recounting his conversation with Mullin. King, who is calling for a transparent investigation, said the agents involved were not wearing body cameras.
Bystander video captured after the shooting showed federal agents attempting to slow a white sedan that was circling within an intersection in Biddeford.
Photographs from the scene, taken by the Portland Press Herald, showed a silver Kia sedan cordoned off behind police tape, its windshield struck by four bullet holes on the driver’s side.
The Biddeford Police Department said in a statement that it had responded to the incident and was providing security at the scene, but directed all further inquiries about the shooting to ICE.
The federal agency had not responded to multiple requests for comment as of Monday afternoon, and the FBI’s Boston division confirmed it had responded to the scene but declined to say whether ICE was involved, referring reporters back to the agency.
The Ninth Fatal Encounter Since the Crackdown Began
According to the Associated Press, Monday’s shooting marks at least the ninth death resulting from an encounter with federal immigration officials since the start of the Trump administration’s intensified deportation push, and the second within a single week.
Just days earlier, on July 7, an ICE officer in Houston fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo after federal agents in unmarked vehicles pursued him while he was driving a construction crew to a job site, an incident the Department of Homeland Security said occurred after Salgado Araujo attempted to run over an officer, a claim disputed by an attorney representing others who were in the vehicle.
The Guardian reported last week that at least 10 fatal shootings have occurred across the US involving federal immigration agents since Trump’s second term began, a tally that stands alongside a separate report from Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights documenting 52 deaths in ICE custody during the administration’s first 500 days.
A State Still Reeling From January’s Enforcement Surge
Monday’s shooting follows a period of heightened ICE activity in Maine that began in January, when the Department of Homeland Security launched an enforcement operation dubbed “Operation Catch of the Day,” a name apparently referencing the state’s seafood industry, resulting in hundreds of arrests.
A US Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that some of those arrested had been convicted of serious crimes, including aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child, though court records reviewed by reporters showed many detainees had unresolved immigration proceedings or no criminal convictions at all.
US Immigration officials said they ceased “enhanced operations” in the state in late January, though residents say ICE activity had noticeably increased again in the Biddeford area in recent weeks.
Sue Roche, executive director of Maine’s Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, said her organisation has observed a shift in the population targeted by recent enforcement actions.
“Over the past few months, the majority of immigration enforcement activity we have observed in Maine has involved ICE arrests of individuals who entered the United States lawfully on visas and who have sought lawful status by applying for asylum,” Roche said in a statement, calling for a full, transparent investigation into Monday’s shooting.
Protests Erupt, Reaching Even a Senator’s Office
Outrage over the shooting spread quickly through Biddeford and beyond.
A group of protesters marched into the local office of Sen. Susan Collins, Maine’s lone Republican in Congress, prompting two police cruisers to arrive within minutes as officers worked to direct traffic around the crowd gathered on Main Street.
Collins called for accountability in a statement of her own. “The shooting in Biddeford requires a full and impartial investigation of what happened,” she said, adding that Biddeford police had secured the site and that the FBI was investigating. Community members expressed anger and grief at the scene.
Biddeford resident Marcia Hanes, who lives a block from where the shooting occurred, did not mince words. “It is horrific. ICE needs to be disbanded. People who work for ICE are untrained… They need to be out of Maine. They need to be out of the United States,” she said. Crystal Cron, executive director of the advocacy group Presente!, said the community was mobilising to support the victim’s relatives.
“Our community is taking immediate action to protect and care for this family that has been shattered by state violence,” Cron said, adding that the group would “not let this death be reduced to a footnote in this administration’s enforcement statistics.”
Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, said she had been briefed on the shooting and that state police were working alongside federal officials and the state attorney general’s office to determine what happened. “I know that situations like these are alarming and frightening,” Mills said in a statement.
A Pattern That Echoes Earlier ICE ‘Tragedies’
Monday’s death follows a string of high-profile fatal encounters involving federal immigration agents that have drawn national scrutiny in recent months, most notably the January killings of 37-year-old mother Renee Good and 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti during an ICE operation in Minneapolis, both of which sparked protests across the US.
The shooting also comes amid a sharply intensified deportation campaign; the Associated Press has reported that ICE arrested more than 10,000 people during a single five-day period at the end of June.
As the FBI and Maine State Police continue their joint investigation into Monday’s shooting, alongside the state attorney general’s office, community advocates and elected officials alike are pressing for answers about why lethal force was used against a man described by those who knew him as simply on his way to work.
