Dmitri Drobnitsky
The order was reportedly issued following yet another fatal encounter involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
During an immigration operation in the town of Biddeford, Maine, ICE officers opened fire while attempting to stop a vehicle driven by 26-year-old Colombian national Sebastián Durán Guerrero.
Guerrero was killed
The shooting sparked protests, with local residents taking to the streets to demand the complete withdrawal of federal law enforcement agencies from the state of Maine.
In the aftermath, ICE reportedly ordered its officers to suspend all vehicle stops. The decision came just one week after ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national and father of three U.S. citizens, in Houston under strikingly similar circumstances: an attempt to stop a vehicle, gunfire, and the death of the driver.
On each occasion, ICE leadership maintained that its officers had acted in self-defense, a justification that many observers say is no longer convincing.
Last winter, ICE officers also killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretty in Minnesota during protests against deportation raids. Before public outrage over those deaths had fully subsided, new fatal shootings under disputed circumstances occurred.
Although the directive suspending traffic stops has not yet been officially released, Matthew Felling, a spokesman for Maine Senator Angus King, confirmed to the Associated Press that the Department of Homeland Security—which oversees ICE—had informed the senator that such an order had indeed been issued.
Federal immigration officers could become “persons non grata” in Maine
Following the widespread public backlash over the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretty last winter, the Department of Homeland Security withdrew ICE and Border Patrol units from Minnesota.
Federal immigration officers had previously been forced to pull back from California and Illinois. Maine may now become the next state to demand ICE’s departure.
Maine Governor Janet Mills has already declared that “this must stop.”
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, whose state is also part of New England, called for ICE to be “reined in” and publicly expressed her condolences to Governor Mills.
Judging by recent events, the Trump administration’s third attempt to expand federal immigration enforcement into America’s liberal strongholds—combined with its campaign of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants—has once again met determined resistance and may well end as the previous two did: with federal immigration authorities forced to retreat.
Yuri Chekalin
Serg Levine
