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The fatal shooting of a ۲۶-year-old Colombian man by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Maine has become the latest flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s aggressive crackdown on foreign nationals.
Human rights groups identified the man killed in Biddeford on Monday as a Colombian national authorised to work in the US. Colombia’s embassy said it was in contact with American authorities and was providing consular assistance to his family.
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The shooting comes amid a sharp increase in immigration arrests, renewed protests and mounting concern over the growing number of people killed during ICE raids and other enforcement operations. Scrutiny is also growing over the rising death toll inside immigration detention facilities.
Here’s what we know.
What happened in Maine?
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, said agents were conducting surveillance at an address linked to someone who had received a final order of removal from the country.
The incident unfolded in Biddeford, a coastal city about ۲۴km (۱۵ miles) southwest of Portland, the state’s biggest city.
According to DHS, agents attempted to stop a vehicle leaving the address. The department said the driver tried to flee and that “fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon”.
Earlier, Maine Senator Angus King said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had told him the officer fired after the driver allegedly attempted to use the vehicle as a weapon against ICE agents.
King also said the agents involved were not wearing body cameras and that they had been in Biddeford to arrest someone other than the man who was shot.
The brief DHS statement did not mention a weapon or whether the person killed was the individual agents had originally sought to arrest.
The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and advocacy group Presente! said the man who was killed had authorisation to work in the US.
Meanwhile, Maine’s attorney general, whose office is conducting a separate investigation into the incident, said preliminary evidence suggests the driver was attempting to flee in the direction of the agent when the shooting occurred. The officer involved has been placed on administrative leave.
The DHS Office of Inspector General is also investigating alongside the FBI.
Al Jazeera has contacted DHS seeking clarification about the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
Why are ICE controversial?
ICE, the largest federal law enforcement agency within DHS, has long been responsible for enforcing immigration laws and carrying out deportations.
But since Trump returned to office, the administration has taken on a far more visible and aggressive role in its methods used to deport foreign nationals.
Civil rights groups and immigrant advocates have condemned operations involving masked federal agents, unmarked vehicles, large workplace raids and arrests outside immigration courts and public spaces. Critics say the tactics spread fear throughout immigrant communities.
It comes as tensions escalated earlier this year in Minneapolis, where residents described the city as being “under siege”, as federal immigration agents intensified operations that began last December.
The crackdown led to nationwide attention after two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, were killed in January during separate immigration crackdowns, triggering large demonstrations and widespread international condemnation.
Gregory Bovino, the senior Border Patrol official who led the federal operation in Minneapolis, also drew widespread attention for posting videos from enforcement actions on social media. Footage of Bovino walking through protests in a long military-style coat while directing officers prompted criticism, with some commentators likening the imagery to fascist aesthetics.
Why is there renewed attention on ICE?
Following the unrest in Minneapolis, Bovino was reassigned, and data shows there was a temporary slowdown in arrests. According to the Deportation Data Project, daily ICE arrests fell to about ۱,۰۵۷ in February.
But that decline proved short-lived, with ICE arresting approximately ۱۰,۰۰۰ people during a five-day period at the end of June, according to The New York Times, or about ۲,۰۰۰ per day. At the same time, the number of people held in ICE detention facilities climbed to roughly ۳۹,۰۰۰ during June, The Associated Press reported.
As immigration arrests continue to rise and the number of deaths involving ICE grows, several hundred demonstrators gathered in Biddeford on Monday evening carrying anti-ICE signs and calling for the agency to be abolished.
These demonstrations also come just days after another fatal ICE shooting. On July ۷, an ICE officer shot and killed ۵۲-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo of Houston, after federal agents in unmarked vehicles pursued him while he was driving members of his construction crew to a job site. Araujo did not have legal permission to live in the US at the time of his killing, but had applied for residency. He had no criminal record.
How many people have died during recent immigration enforcement operations?
The Maine shooting is at least the ninth death linked to federal immigration enforcement since Trump intensified his immigration crackdown, although not every death occurred during an ICE operation.
In one case, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents shot dead a man who opened fire on a Border Patrol facility in Texas. In another, an off-duty ICE officer fatally shot a man in California.
Among the highest-profile incidents were the deaths of US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota earlier this year. Good, who was unarmed, was shot while driving her car during an immigration enforcement operation. Federal officials said she had “weaponised” her vehicle by driving it towards officers – an explanation that has featured in a number of recent fatal shootings involving immigration agents.
The Wall Street Journal identified more than a dozen incidents between July ۲۰۲۵ and January ۲۰۲۶ in which federal immigration officers fired at people inside vehicles.
Other recent deaths include:
- Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, a ۳۸-year-old Mexican line cook, who was shot dead by an immigration agent during a traffic stop outside Chicago after dropping a child at daycare.
- In March ۲۰۲۵, ICE agents fatally shot ۲۳-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez, a US citizen, while he was driving his car.
- Jaime Alanis, a ۵۷-year-old Mexican farmworker, died after falling about nine metres (۳۰ feet) from the roof of a greenhouse during immigration raids on two cannabis farms in Southern California, where about ۲۰۰ workers were arrested.
- A ۵۲-year-old Guatemalan man, Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, was struck and killed by an SUV while attempting to cross a Southern California freeway during an immigration enforcement operation.
- Josue Castro Rivera, a ۲۴-year-old Honduran man, was hit and killed by a pick-up truck while crossing a highway during an immigration traffic stop in Norfolk, Virginia.
What about deaths in ICE detention?
Last month, Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights reported that ۵۲ people had also died in ICE custody during the first ۵۰۰ days of Trump’s second administration.
The organisations said the mortality rate inside ICE detention is now at its highest level in more than a decade.
According to the report, the rate is nearly four times higher than during the Biden administration and more than two-and-a-half times higher than during Trump’s first term.
The figures have also fuelled renewed criticism of conditions inside immigration detention facilities and prompted calls for greater oversight.
Last month, the agency ended a policy introduced under the Biden administration requiring it to notify Congress and investigate the deaths of detainees occurring within ۳۰ days of their release from custody.
Rights groups say that detainees frequently die after being transferred from ICE detention centres to hospitals, where they are taken only after their health has significantly deteriorated.
