Fatal ICE shooting in Biddeford leaves Maine on edge

Federal immigration officers shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 26, in Biddeford, Maine, during a Monday morning enforcement operation, and the killing quickly sharpened fears that immigration stops can turn fatal in ordinary neighborhoods. Federal officials have released few details, and the case remains under investigation as residents try to piece together what happened on a city street they know well.

ICE said the officer fired after the vehicle Durán Guerrero was in tried to flee, and that the agent feared for public safety. Coverage identified Durán Guerrero as a Colombian national living in Biddeford, where neighbors said he worked as a cleaner and food delivery driver and had a partner and a 3-year-old daughter. Department of Homeland Security coverage also indicated that neither Durán Guerrero nor the man killed in Houston the day before had been the target of the enforcement operations.

The Biddeford shooting landed outside Susan Collins’s local office, where protesters and immigrant-rights advocates gathered in the hours after the killing. Maine Democrats moved quickly to connect the episode to Collins as the state’s high-stakes Senate race intensified, while Collins, Sen. Angus King and other Maine officials publicly weighed in even as federal authorities said little about the chain of events that led to the shooting.

The political and operational fallout spread beyond Maine. ICE ordered a halt to most vehicle stops connected to immigration enforcement after the Biddeford and Houston killings, and the agency is expected to expand body cameras and add new training for vehicle stops. The two fatal shootings came within six days, a pace that revived criticism over ICE’s use of force and its reliance on traffic stops, and left Biddeford with a more immediate worry: whether people will trust police and federal agents enough to cooperate the next time officers pull someone over.