In the video, Joan Sebastian Guerrero’s car drives in a slow circle. It moves at a creep, barely faster than a person’s walking pace. An ICE officer clings to the door handle, alongside the vehicle. Shortly after, Guerrero was dead, the second person killed by ICE during a botched raid in less than a week.
Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national who immigrant rights groups say was legally authorized to live and work in the U.S., was killed Monday morning by ICE officers in Biddeford, Maine. Six days earlier, ICE agents shot and killed Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas, in a similar vehicle-involved incident. Unlike many of the agency’s past killings, Araujo and Guerrero’s deaths appear to have spurred immediate policy changes. On Tuesday, the Trump administration ordered ICE to cease most vehicle stops during their operations, a minor concession that does nothing to change the underlying issues driving the agency’s deadly, nationwide immigration crackdown since Donald Trump retook office.
In Guerrero’s case, for instance, ICE agents were allowed to stake out the home of an immigrant who was only suspected of entering the country illegally, and then force a confrontation with a then-unidentified person leaving the property in a vehicle. In a statement to some members of Congress, ICE claimed that Guerrero “weaponized his vehicle toward law enforcement,” but did not confirm that Guerrero was actually the intended target of the investigation. In a statement Monday evening, DHS made no mention of any weaponization, only noting that the vehicle “attempted to flee the scene.”
In Araujo’s case, the deceased was not the target of ICE’s operation — and agents still killed him, giving a similar excuse about his operation of his vehicle. DHS said in a statement that he attempted to “run over” an officer, a claim the three men in the car with Araunjo have denied. This is a trend: Renee Good was killed in her car earlier this year in Minneapolis in a similarly haphazard stop, with the Trump administration claiming Good had weaponized her vehicle despite video evidence indicating she was trying to evade the officer. All told, ICE has shot at least 21 people since last March.
Rep. Jared Golden, one of Maine’s two congressmen, said that he had spoken to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and confirmed that the officers involved were not wearing body cameras, a policy that was funded in Trump’s April immigration bill but has yet to be widely applied across the agency. Golden, a Democrat, previously said that he supported targeted ICE operations in his district. (Golden’s office did not immediately respond to an interview request from Rolling Stone.) Thus far, the only videos that have surfaced or been released are of the aftermath of the Guerrero shooting and other clips of officers dragging his body from the car.
“People are extremely angry and upset,” Rep. Chellie Pingree — Maine’s other representative, who represents the city Guerrero was shot in — told The New York Times, “No one should fear they’re going to be shot when they’re just heading out to work.”
Information about Guerrero’s killing is still sparse. He was first identified in a statement by Maine Senator Angus King, but has not been identified by ICE. King first said that Guerrero was the target of ICE’s warrant, but then recanted and said that Guerrero was “NOT” the target of the warrant. Two immigrant rights organizations, Presente! and the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition, have said Guerrero was issued a social security number and was authorized to work in the U.S.
What we do know is how ICE has responded to past incidents of this matter: with a stone wall of defiance. Maine’s various politicians are calling for some version of a “full investigation” (Sen. Susan Collins) that will “determine the facts” (Gov. Janet Mills). The investigation is currently being run by the DHS. In the past, such investigations have gone nowhere. The officers who killed Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis have yet to be charged. State prosecutors are working on several cases pertaining to those killings, but have faced stalling and vague obstruction from federal agencies for months.
It’s clear that there is only one person who can force ICE to heel: Donald Trump. ICE operates with impunity. When it gets too far out of line, the big man slaps it down — just a little to appease just enough of his critics that he can let out the leash again a short time later. When he does, people die.
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