‘A campaign of chaos’: Maine shooting raises fresh questions about ICE accountability

The fatal shooting of an immigrant in Maine on Monday by an ICE agent fits what lawmakers and advocates say is an emerging pattern by the embattled agency: a violent confrontation with a person who was not the target of their operation and conflicting explanations about how it unfolded — if any at all.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Monday shot into a car driven by Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian native who was legally authorized to work in the United States and whom neighbors described as trying to build a stable life for his family.

After initially claiming they were acting on a deportation order, the agency later admitted that Guerrero was not the target of the operation, although details of what happened are still murky.

The fatal shooting, coming shortly after another in Texas, has sparked fresh scrutiny of the Trump administration’s immigration tactics, as well as complaints about shifting explanations and little transparency.

The situation prompted at least one immediate change: On Tuesday, Trump administration officials ordered ICE to pause most vehicle stops. Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins said she had requested the change from Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin directly.

The incidents nonethelesspresent a major testfor Mullin, of whether he can assuage lawmakers’ and advocates’ concerns.

“The American people will never trust an agency that operates without rules and without consequences for misconduct, and I fear that that’s what’s going to happen again here,” said Representative Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat who sits on the committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security. “This is the kind of culture that they have created, a culture of acting recklessly and illegally, and then lying about it.”

The Trump administration’s efforts to detain and deport immigrants have sparked fear within immigrant communities and outrage in cities across the country.

In the Biddeford shooting, a spokesperson for ICE who declined to provide their name said a vehicle tried to flee the scene and “fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.” The agency said its inspector general has been notified.

Critics of the agency say situations like the ones in Maine and Texas were likely to become more common as the Trump administration increased daily arrest quotas and encouraged agents to .

While agents in theory have a “duty to tell the truth,” said Ryan Schwank, an attorney who worked at ICE’s training academy in Georgia, “the cultural effect of the agency’s senior leadership coming out and denying, denying, denying that something went wrong translates down to the officers themselves.”

Schwank resigned from the agency in February and said he later testifiedto Congress that the Trump administration cut training and removed “large swaths of material” students were supposed to learn, much of which dealt with “safety and legality of operations.”

“Officers were trained in a way where they would not recognize an unlawful order, and they would lack the necessary training to be able to handle a crisis or a confrontation that escalated,” Schwank said, “which is exactly what we’re seeing now.”

Immigration lawyers said they are advising their clients to stay safe and abide by the law, but warned it may not be enough to avoid violent or tragic situations.

“What you have now are targeted operations based upon a false premise that every one of these people they’re after is a criminal. That’s not so,” said Anthony Drago Jr., a Boston-based immigration attorney who formerly worked as a liaison to ICE.

“You have these people who are being misidentified and arrested,” he added.“And with all the news that’s out there, I mean, who wouldn’t be afraid when you get pulled over by an unmarked car?”

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ICE has made few changes to rein in its aggressive tactics throughout the Trump administration. But the pause on Tuesday on most vehicle stops, in Schwank’s view, represented “an admission that there is a significant and consistent training failure.”

ICE, he said, is “essentially giving up the most commonly used tool in its arsenal for making an arrest.”

But Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, said that directive comes “too little, too late,” saying immigrants are already scared that leaving their homes can “trigger life-threatening ICE consequences.” The organization said it has seen an uptick in immigration enforcement activity, especially in and around immigrant communities, since July 4.

“The federal response to the fatalities has been anemic and muted, with insufficient guardrails and protections in place to keep people safe,” he said.

Earlier this year, federal immigration agents killed two US citizens in Minnesota, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as officers descended on the city. The turmoil during that period ultimately led to Kristi Noem stepping down as homeland security secretary.

Mullin, during his confirmation hearings in March to replace her, said that his “goal in six months is that we’re not in the lead story every single day.”

But events in Texas and Maine have again placed the agency squarely at the center of public attention, and it’s not just Democrats who are seeking more answers. While many Republicans express greater confidence in Mullin than in his predecessor, they also expect more information about what happened.

Collins, a Republican, said the shooting appeared to be a “horrible tragedy” and is calling for a thorough investigation.

Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a Republican, notedthere were differences between the Maineshooting and thosein Minnesota, when border agents were “doing a very different mission than ICE normally does.”

“I’ve got to go back and see how they got it wrong, and it looks like in Maine … they had a deportation order, but they weren’t going after the right person,” Tillis said. “How on earth could that have happened?”

Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate PennsylvaniaRepublican, said the incident shows the need for a bill he proposed that would impose on ICE the same standards and accountability practices as other federal law enforcement agencies.

“Very simple. Shouldn’t be complicated,” Fitzpatrick said,noting lawmakers don’t question funding for other agencies. “It’s only ICE because ICE comports to a different standard.”

Some progressive Democrats went further, including Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley, who co-sponsored a bill that would require immigration authorities to turn over documents in cases of suspected excessive force.

Pressley, who has advocated to abolish ICE, said Tuesday the agency is waging “a campaign of chaos and terror, quite literally traumatizing people, murdering them in broad daylight.”

“These people have to be prosecuted for every person that they have maimed, injured, harmed, or killed,” she said.

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Globe Correspondent Sophie Endrud contributed to this report.