Ice agent kills motorist during attempted deportation in Maine

A federal immigration officer fatally shot a motorist in Maine on Monday, the second time in a week that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have used deadly force.

Immigrant rights groups identified the man who was killed as a 26-year-old native of Colombia.

Senator Angus King said homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against officers who were pursuing him for deportation in Biddeford, a coastal city of about 23,000 people roughly 15 miles (24 kilometres) south-west of Portland.

“He was in a vehicle — pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was ‘weaponised’ the vehicle and was shot by an Ice agent,” Mr King said.

The Maine attorney general’s office, which is investigating along with the FBI and other agencies, said initial statements suggest the motorist was trying to flee in the direction of the agent.

The man was the target of an enforcement operation related to a final order of removal, the office said, and the agent who killed him has been placed on leave.

Messages seeking comment were left for Ice and the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The advocacy groups Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! said the man who was killed was authorised to work in the US and had a social security number.

After the shooting, his family contacted the Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, executive director Mufalo Chitam said.

“It’s a young family and he was leaving to go to work,” Ms Chitam told The Associated Press.

The family, she said, is not ready to speak publicly about the shooting.

Dozens of demonstrators critical of Ice and US President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown gathered in Biddeford within hours of the shooting.

Amy Goodman, who is from nearby Wells, arrived with a sign that said “Stop Killing Us” and directed it toward police working at the scene.

“Sadly, it’s something we’re seeing a whole lot more often lately, and I’m mad about it,” said Ms Goodman, who was wearing a shirt that said “Ice is best when crushed”.

“It’s heartbreaking and I wanted to show up,” Ms Goodman’s friend, Molly Zucker of Cape Neddick, said as she held a sign reading, “No human being is illegal”.

Police blocked access to the shooting scene, which is in an area of mostly multi-family homes, churches and businesses.

Several protesters stood nearby, with some holding signs condemning Ice’s presence in the community and state.

“We are grieving, we are furious, and we will not allow his death to be treated as routine or inevitable,” Ms Chitam said.

“How much more harm must our communities endure before those with the power to act acknowledge that this has gone too far?”

The fatal shooting in Maine was at least the ninth death from an encounter with federal immigration officials since the start of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and the second in a week, following the killing of a Houston man.

The reported shooting comes amid a newly intensified push by the Trump administration to carry out its mass deportations agenda.

During the five-day period at the end of June, Ice arrested more than 10,000 people.

The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests continue and are surging.

Ice had a significant presence in Maine earlier this year, which prompted several protests.

The Homeland Security Department named the operation “Catch of the Day”, an apparent play on Maine’s seafood industry, just as it has done for other enforcement surges, like “Metro Surge” in Minnesota and “Midway Blitz” in Chicago.

Immigration officials said in late January that they had ceased “enhanced operations” in Maine after hundreds of arrests.

A Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that some Maine arrests were of people “convicted of horrific crimes” including aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Court records show that while some had felony convictions, others had unresolved immigration proceedings or had been arrested but never convicted of a crime.

Ice arrested 546 people in Maine between the start of Mr Trump’s second term and March 11 2026, the most recent data available, according to Ice arrest data provided to the University of California, Berkeley Deportation Data Project and analysed by the AP.

About 45% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds.

During the equivalent 416-day period before Mr Trump took office, roughly 69% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds, the data shows.

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.

Last week, an Ice officer fatally shot 52-year-old Salgado Araujo, of Houston, after he was pursued by federal agents driving unmarked vehicles while he was taking his construction crew to their latest job site.