Motorist fatally shot by ICE agent in Maine

A union soldier in-migration ship's officer fatally crack a automobilist in Maine on Monday, the second time in a week that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have used deadly force and at least the ninth time since U.S. President Donald Trump began his immigration crackdown.

Immigrant rights groups identified the man who was killed as a 26-year-old native of Colombia.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a post on the social platform X that ICE was surveilling an address for a person with a final order of removal. When ICE tried to stop a vehicle driven by someone coming from that address, "The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon," the department said.

U.S. Sen. Angus King previously said U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against ICE agents in Biddeford, a coastal city roughly 24 kilometres southwest of Portland.

"He was in a vehicle — pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was 'weaponized' the vehicle and was shot by an ICE agent," King said.

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King, a Maine independent, said Mullin also told him the officers were in Biddeford to serve an arrest warrant but that it was for not for the person who was shot.

King said Mullin told him that earlier information that the man was the target of an enforcement action was incorrect. He said Mullin "got new information, and when he got it he called me to tell me."

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said Mullin told her the Homeland Security Department's Office of Inspector General is investigating in co-operation with the FBI.

Messages seeking comment were left for ICE and the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The Maine attorney general's office, which is also investigating, said initial statements suggest the motorist was trying to flee in the direction of the agent. The office said the agent who killed him has been placed on leave.

Daniel Boucher said he looked out his third-floor window after hearing a "pop, pop, pop" sound and saw a small car "turned 90 degrees to the curb" with an SUV behind it. The driver was wounded and the car started moving down the street until the SUV hit it again, Boucher said.

"His face was bloody. His head was bloody," Boucher said, getting choked up. "I clearly heard the victim say, 'I tried to stop' — clearly heard him say that."

Boucher said he saw an ICE officer bring a medical bag to where the man was lying before an ambulance and fire truck arrived. At one point, Boucher said, the agent who shot the man walked close to him.

"I was emotional and I just let him have it, and he looked at me and said, 'He tried to run me over,' or something to that effect," Boucher said. "I don't remember his exact words."

The agents involved in the shooting didn't have body-worn cameras, King said.

"The question is, what did he do with his vehicle," King said. "Were officers threatened? Were the threats rising to the level that justified deadly force?"

Two advocacy groups — Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition and Presente! — said the man who was killed was authorized to work in the U.S.

After the shooting, the man's family contacted the Immigrants' Rights Coalition, but they aren't ready to speak publicly about the shooting, said the organization's executive director, Mufalo Chitam.

Mary Hayes, who lives close to where the shooting happened, said the man lived nearby with his wife and daughter.

"I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband's dead body on the ground," Hayes told The Associated Press as she held a piece of cardboard with "No ICE Stop ICE" written on it. "I watched a little girl crying with a little pink backpack on because she's never going to see her father again."

The Colombian Embassy said it is in contact with U.S. Authorities and "working to formally confirm the individual's identity and nationality."

Sadie Dilboy said the man killed in the shooting regularly came to her laundromat and would bring his daughter, who he'd give quarters to buy candy from the vending machine.

"He was such a good person," she said. "He was always cleaning up."

Dozens of demonstrators critical of ICE and Trump's ongoing immigration crackdown gathered in Biddeford within hours of the shooting.

Amy Goodman, who is from nearby Wells, arrived with a sign that said "Stop Killing Us" and directed it toward police working at the scene.

"Sadly, it's something we're seeing a whole lot more often lately, and I'm mad about it," said Goodman, who was wearing a shirt that said "ICE is best when crushed."

Police blocked access to the shooting scene, which is in a neighbourhood of mostly multi-family homes, churches and businesses near downtown. Several protesters stood nearby, with some holding signs condemning ICE's presence in the community and state.

"We are grieving, we are furious, and we will not allow his death to be treated as routine or inevitable," Chitam said. "How much more harm must our communities endure before those with the power to act acknowledge that this has gone too far?"

The shooting comes amid a newly intensified push by the Trump administration to carry out its mass deportations agenda.

During the five-day period at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people. The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests are surging. The administration's enforcement efforts were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.

"More than anything else, I want to know, 'Why are you in Maine?'" Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree said in a video on social media.

ICE had a significant presence in Maine earlier this year, which prompted several protests. Immigration officials said in late January that they had ceased "enhanced operations" in Maine after hundreds of arrests.

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A Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that some Maine arrests were of people "convicted of horrific crimes including aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and endangering the welfare of a child."

But court records painted a slightly different story: While some had felony convictions, others were detainees with unresolved immigration proceedings or who were arrested but never convicted of a crime.

ICE arrested 546 people in Maine between the start of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term and March 11, 2026, the most recent data available, according to ICE arrest data provided to the UC Berkeley Deportation Data Project and analyzed by The Associated Press.

About 45 per cent of those arrested had criminal backgrounds.

During the equivalent 416-day period before Trump took office, roughly 69 per cent of those arrested had criminal backgrounds, the data show.

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