MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

ICE kills a Colombian and a Mexican in operations where they weren't the target, officials say

Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, who had lived in Houston for three decades, had died on July 7, at a traffic stop in that city

Two Latin American migrants were shot dead by agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within a week, in operations in which, as federal authorities and lawmakers acknowledged, neither was the intended target. The deaths revived protests and calls for accountability over President Donald Trump's immigration policy.

Colombian national Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 26, died on July 13 in Biddeford, Maine, when an agent fired at the vehicle he was driving. Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, who had lived in Houston for three decades, had died six days earlier, on July 7, at a traffic stop in that city. Migrant-rights groups said Durán Guerrero was authorized to work in the country; the embassies of Colombia and Mexico are providing consular assistance to the families.

The circumstances of the Maine death are the subject of conflicting accounts. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the driver tried to flee and that, “fearing for public safety,” the agent fired. Senator Angus King, after speaking with DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, gave shifting accounts of whether the man was the target of the operation, and noted that the agents were not wearing body cameras. In Houston, the Harris County District Attorney's Office opened its own investigation and issued nearly twenty subpoenas, saying the federal government was not sharing evidence.

Following the two shootings, Mullin suspended most ICE traffic stops, at the request of Republican Senator Susan Collins, who said the Biddeford case raised “critical questions.” The pause, however, lasted hours: border czar Tom Homan played it down, and the measure was reversed by government decision.

The deaths come amid a sharp increase in immigration arrests. Democratic lawmakers and former officials linked the incidents to pressure to meet arrest quotas. “When there is that relentless pressure to do more, more and more, agents make mistakes,” Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE deputy policy director, told CNN. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer criticized the administration for deploying thousands of agents “without making sure they were trained.”

DHS has repeatedly defended its agents' conduct. Mullin said in May that agents “sacrifice” themselves for the country's safety and that ICE had been “demonized.” Approval of Trump's immigration policy has fallen: about 60% of Americans disapprove of it, according to an Ipsos and Washington Post poll. Various media tallies, in the absence of official figures, put at several dozen the number of people who have died in ICE shootings or in custody since the start of Trump's second term.