Collins calls for ending all ‘non-urgent’ ICE car stops after Maine shooting

Senator Susan Collins of Maine on Tuesday urged federal immigration agents to cease “non-urgent” car stops after an ICE agent fatally shot a man in Biddeford on Monday.

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“While the investigation of the Biddeford shooting is not yet complete, it raises sufficient critical questions that I spoke with DHS Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin last night and urged him to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops,” wrote Collins, a Republican seeking reelection, in an X posting late Tuesday morning.

Collins elaborated during remarks to reporters at the US Capitol on Tuesday.

“I am also very eager to get the body-worn cameras out to all ICE officials,” Collins said. “It should be mandatory.”

Her remarks came after an ICE agent fatally shot Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national, in Biddeford on Monday morning. Two immigrant rights groups said Monday the man had been authorized to work in the US.

Authorities haven’t named the ICE agent who opened fire but said he was placed on administrative leave.

Collins said Monday evening via X that Mullin had “informed me that the Boston office of the DHS Inspector General has taken over the investigation of the Biddeford shooting in cooperation with the FBI.”

One of the senate candidates seeking to unseat Collins, Dr. Nirav D. Shah, a former CDC director, held a briefing on the shooting Tuesday outside her district office in Biddeford.

Shah pressed for “answers and accountability” from politicians in Washington, whom he accused of enabling violent acts by ICE agents.

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“This lawlessness did not appear or occur in a vacuum,” he said. “It is the direct result of a rogue federal agency running completely wild, operating with a total lack of transparency, and complete impunity.”

Shah specifically called out Collins, saying her actions did not match her words. She promised the she was a “leader with the unique standing to pick up the phone, provide oversight, and fix things,” he said. “The truth is, Senator Collins is never going to hold ICE accountable, because she is the one bankrolling it.”

As the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Collins holds a powerful position in Congress when it comes to federal spending, Shah said. She could have put “strict conditions” on the money funneled to ICE.

“Yet instead, time and time again, she has handed ICE a blank check,” he said. “What we have seen from Senator Collins is a pattern of enablement, and what we have seen from that is a record that has led directly to the tragedy and murder just yesterday.”

Collins, in her separate remarks to reporters Tuesday in Washington referenced ICE budget appropriations in her call for agents to be outfitted with body cameras.

“That is $20 million that I negotiated back in January that became law in April,” Collins said. “That also included other safeguards, such as additional funding for de-escalation training and also a 17 percent increase in the budget for the [DHS] Office of Inspector General to investigate” cases such as the fatal shooting in Biddeford.

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Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.