Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) is speaking out after an ICE officer fatally shot a 26-year-old Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine, the second fatal ICE encounter in a week.
The victim was Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who lived in Maine with his wife and daughter. Two advocacy groups said he was authorized to work in the United States.
The Associated Press reported a neighbor who witnessed the aftermath described watching his wife fall to her knees at the scene.
Ansari then responded on X. "ICE murdered a 26-year-old in front of his wife and daughter," she wrote, calling the DHS statement evidence that "there was no threat whatsoever."
She called for the abolition of ICE and prosecution of those she held responsible.
Differing Statements
However, the Department of Homeland Security offered a different account. According to DHS, officers were conducting surveillance on the last known address of someone with a final order of removal when Durán Guerrero departed the residence in a vehicle.
When ICE attempted a vehicle stop, the vehicle tried to flee, and an officer fired his weapon "fearing for public safety." Durán Guerrero was struck and later died.
That account, however, shifted from an earlier version. Maine Senator Angus King (I-ME) said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin had initially told him the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon, a characterization that differed significantly from the agency's later statement.
King also said the officers were not there for Durán Guerrero specifically, but for someone else believed to be at the same address.
Further complicating the issue, the officers involved had no body cameras, leaving key questions unanswered, including how close the officer was when he fired and whether Durán Guerrero was given any verbal commands to stop. A witness nearby said he heard the victim say "I tried to stop" as he lay in the street.
Multiple investigations are now underway, including probes by the FBI, DHS's Office of Inspector General, and the Maine Attorney General's Office. The shooting came just one week after the fatal ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.
