ICE shootings in Texas and Maine nod to a culture of recklessness
The January killings of protesters and U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minnesota sparked horror and concern about the tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Trump administration was chastened enough to overhaul the leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees ICE.
But whatever culture of impunity and recklessness governed ICE then still guides the agency today. That can be our only conclusion after federal agents shot and killed two men in the span of a week in Houston and Biddeford, Maine. Neither of the men were the targets of ICE operations.
On July 7, an ICE agent fatally shot a Mexican immigrant, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, as he drove a van with other construction workers on their way to their job site. It’s unclear from video footage how he was shot, but video obtained by news outlets shows that two unmarked ICE vehicles aggressively pursued the van. The workers in the van said through attorneys that they didn’t know those vehicles were law enforcement.
It’s easy to imagine a driver becoming spooked and trying to evade strange vehicles chasing him. The FBI searched the van on suspicion that it might have carried drugs, according to The New York Times.
ICE told reporters that an officer fired in self-defense after Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle. The agency offered no evidence. The officers weren’t wearing body cameras.
Seven days later, a Colombian immigrant, Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, was shot in his vehicle in Maine. Again, ICE argued that Durán Guerrero had “weaponized” his vehicle against agents. Again, it offered no video or other evidence.
We’ve heard that excuse before. ICE claimed that Good had tried to run over an agent and that Pretti was a domestic terrorist. Video showed that both explanations were lies.
The agency said it had been surveilling the last known address in Maine of a person with a deportation order. But a spokesperson for Maine U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent, told news outlets that Durán Guerrero was not the target of the investigation. Witnesses said they saw Durán Guerrero’s partner and their 3-year-old daughter crying at the scene of the shooting.
ICE destroyed its credibility in January. Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency would deploy body cameras nationwide. So we ask our new DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin: Where are those cameras today?
Well-run local police departments have strict protocols about vehicle chases and the use of force. Judges demand probable cause to authorize an arrest. So how is it that one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the country is killing people during traffic stops?
ICE suspended vehicle stops on Tuesday, only for President Donald Trump within a day to order that this decision be overturned.
Congress should summon Mullin to Capitol Hill and demand answers. The killing must stop.
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This story was originally published July 17, 2026 at 4:27 AM.