Wild New Details Emerge on ICE Agent Involved in Fatal Maine Shooting

The ICE agent who shot and killed a 26-year-old Colombian immigrant in Biddeford, Maine, Monday morning had been with the agency for just a few short months.

The agent who killed Joan Sebastián Guerrero, the father of a three-year-old daughter, has not yet been identified, but a senior administration official who spoke with The Atlantic Tuesday on the condition of anonymity said that the agent was hired this year. The agent had previously been employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs Police, and had worked within the fold of federal law enforcement since 2017.

It was the second such shooting within the span of a week. Last week, another ICE agent killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo—a 52-year-old Mexican father of three and a local small-business owner—during a traffic stop in Houston. DHS officials have claimed that Salgado Araujo attempted to hit the federal agents with the front of his van, but eyewitnesses have directly contradicted that narrative. Bystanders who spoke with Representative Sylvia Garcia said that the agent fired his gun through the front passenger side window, and that federal agents were never in front of the vehicle.

The offending officer in the Houston shooting has not yet been publicly identified, either.

The two deaths prompted ICE to suspend all vehicle stops “effective immediately,” according to an email notice issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement official Liana Castano to ICE supervisors around the country. The directive came from Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin with support from ICE acting Director David Venturella, reported The Atlantic.

There have now been 11 fatal shootings by ICE agents since Donald Trump returned to office and made mass deportations a cornerstone of his second-term agenda.

In January, federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old mother Renee Nicole Good and, days later, ICU nurse Alex Pretti. Both were U.S. citizens. Their deaths sparked national outrage and further incensed the local pandemonium in Minneapolis that started weeks prior with Trump’s sudden decision to occupy the city with federal agents.

It’s been over six months since their deaths, but still virtually nothing has come of the federal investigation into the extrajudicial killings. Instead, Washington has reportedly utilized its heft to stow critical evidence—such as Good’s vehicle—away from the local and private detectives attempting to hold their killers accountable. ...