ICE Suspends Vehicle Stops

Biddeford/Washington (KB) - It took two more deaths in seven days before someone in Washington finally hit the brakes. Under pressure from emergency motions filed in court and growing political pressure, the Trump administration has instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, to suspend most vehicle stops nationwide for the time being. Multiple people familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed the directive. It follows the deaths of two people within a single week, in Houston and in the coastal town of Biddeford, Maine. Both were killed after agents attempted to stop their vehicles.

Read also our article: Enough - Shot Dead for Nothing: ICE Kills a Family Father in Maine Who Was Never Even the Person They Were Looking For

The decision comes late, and it comes for the wrong reason. It does not appear to have been driven by any realization that deadly force had become disproportionate, but by mounting legal and political pressure from influential lawmakers and state officials demanding answers. Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine who is seeking reelection this year, said Tuesday that the shooting in Biddeford raises serious questions and that she had urged Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to suspend all nonessential vehicle stops. The White House referred requests for comment to ICE itself, which responded only by saying that it does not discuss law enforcement tactics.

When asked about the death of Joan Sebastian Guerrero, House Speaker Mike Johnson initially said he had been "a little busy yesterday." When reporters pressed him further, he responded, "Mock me if you want."

That refusal to answer deserves attention. Max Weber defined the modern state by its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, but emphasized that the legitimacy of that monopoly exists only so long as it remains bound by rules that can be examined and verified. When the force remains but the accountability disappears, only the force remains. An agency that kills while simultaneously declaring that it will not discuss its methods or standards has crossed that line. Asked whether ICE was reviewing its own procedures, a spokesperson replied that the agency constantly evaluates its operations in order to protect its officers and keep criminals off the streets, but would neither disclose nor discuss operational tactics.

The man killed in Biddeford has now been identified, according to the Colombian Embassy and a request submitted by journalists, as Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 26 years old. Earlier reporting by the Department of Homeland Security had identified him as Joan Sebastian Guerrero, based on information originating from the office of a U.S. senator. Even the identity of the man shot and killed by federal agents ultimately had to be confirmed through a foreign diplomatic mission while the agency responsible remained silent. A group of investigative journalists visited the Colombian Embassy in Washington earlier today. Officials there said they were deeply shaken.

Biddeford resident: "ICE needs to be disbanded..." A shouting match erupted between two people who were both protesting ICE. Emotions are running high.

The legal framework governing incidents like this is far more substantial than the brief statements issued by the Department suggest. The Fourth Amendment protects people against unreasonable government seizures, and in Tennessee v. Garner the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that deadly force against a fleeing suspect is lawful only when that person poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury. In Graham v. Connor, decided in 1989, the Court held that the reasonableness of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer at the scene, based on the actual threat at the moment the shots were fired. A small white compact car driving in circles would hardly appear to satisfy that standard. The Fifth Amendment further guarantees due process before the government may deprive a person of life.

The path to damages, however, is largely blocked. 42 U.S.C. § 1983 applies only to state officials, not to federal officers. For federal agents, the Supreme Court created a separate cause of action in Bivens in 1971, but in Egbert v. Boule in 2022, the same Court made that remedy for immigration and border enforcement cases virtually unusable. What remains is the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b), together with its law enforcement provision in § 2680(h). Criminal liability may arise under 18 U.S.C. § 242, which prohibits the deprivation of constitutional rights under color of law, while ICE agents derive their arrest authority from 8 U.S.C. § 1357. Broader challenges to agency practices themselves may proceed under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), which authorizes courts to set aside agency actions that are arbitrary, capricious, or exceed lawful authority.

The government's account changed within a matter of hours. The Department of Homeland Security stated that an agent fired out of concern for public safety while conducting surveillance at the residence of a person believed to be in the country illegally and subject to a final removal order. According to the department, agents attempted to stop a vehicle leaving that residence, the driver fled, and an agent then opened fire. That version is simply false. Only hours earlier, Senator Angus King had described the incident differently. He said that Markwayne Mullin had told him the agent fired after the driver allegedly used the vehicle as a weapon and that officers had been attempting to execute an arrest warrant that was not directed at the man who was killed. That version was equally fabricated and demonstrates the extraordinary audacity of the agency. A weapon became a fleeing vehicle. A wanted suspect became an uninvolved man.

The government's account changed within a matter of hours. The Department of Homeland Security stated that an agent fired out of concern for public safety while conducting surveillance at the residence of a person believed to be in the country illegally and subject to a final removal order. According to the department, agents attempted to stop a vehicle leaving that residence, the driver fled, and an agent then opened fire. That version is simply false. Only hours earlier, Senator Angus King had described the incident differently. He said that Markwayne Mullin had told him the agent fired after the driver allegedly used the vehicle as a weapon and that officers had been attempting to execute an arrest warrant that was not directed at the man who was killed. That version was equally fabricated and demonstrates the extraordinary audacity of the agency. A weapon became a fleeing vehicle. A wanted suspect became an uninvolved man.

Protests continue outside the office of Republican Senator Susan Collins.

The numbers behind these two cases are what make them truly alarming. Since Trump's return to office in January 2025, agents involved in his mass deportation campaign have opened fire on at least 22 people. Nine have died, including three American citizens. We are currently investigating a possible tenth fatal case. Nearly all of these shootings involved people sitting inside vehicles. The fact that the agency chose to suspend the tactic that preceded most of those shootings only after reaching this point, and only after two deaths in a single week, under growing legal and political pressure, says more about its priorities than any official press release ever could.

Read also our article: “You Tried to Run, Didn’t You?” - The ICE Agent Said as the Man Bled to Death

Last week in Houston, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52 year old Mexican immigrant who had lived in the city for more than three decades and was on his way to a construction site, along with several passengers in his vehicle. He, too, was not the target of the operation, something federal officials admitted only after first claiming the opposite. The agents in Houston were also not wearing body cameras, even though the Department of Homeland Security had already received $20 million specifically to purchase them. The money existed. The cameras did not.

Without footage from the shooting itself, the central questions remain unanswered. How close was the agent to the vehicle when he opened fire? Was Durán Guerrero ever ordered to stop? And what, exactly, was the threat to public safety that supposedly justified the shooting? Surveillance video from a nearby business captures only what happened afterward - a white compact car slowly approaching an intersection and driving in several circles, an agency SUV blocking its path, and two agents opening the driver's door and pulling out a motionless body. The moment the shots were fired cannot be seen on the recording. The Maine Attorney General's Office, which is investigating alongside the Department's Inspector General and the FBI, continues to maintain that preliminary evidence indicates the driver fled toward the agent. The identity of the shooter has not been released, and the agent has been placed on administrative leave.

Relatives and neighbors who knew Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, the father from Bucaramanga who was killed during an ICE operation, are demanding a full investigation and complete transparency regarding the circumstances of his death.

On Tuesday, hundreds of people gathered outside the ICE detention facility in Scarborough, just up the coast from Biddeford. Their signs read, "Stop the killing" and "End this terror." Organizer Todd Chretien told the crowd that these people are killers and must leave the state immediately. A small group of counterprotesters briefly disrupted the demonstration until their voices were drowned out by whistles. The night before, a candlelight vigil had already moved through Biddeford, and on Tuesday passersby laid flowers at a makeshift memorial. Democratic Senate candidate Nirav Shah also spoke to reporters at the scene.

What is happening in Maine follows an enforcement wave unlike anything seen before. During five days at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people. This deportation campaign has unfolded far more quietly than earlier operations such as the January raid in Minneapolis, during which American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed. It is telling that the Department of Justice did not hand over the evidence from those deaths to state investigators until Monday, after months of delay. The very same day another man died in Biddeford.

The suspension of vehicle stops could prevent ICE from continuing to increase its arrest numbers just as pressure mounts to fulfill the administration's promise of mass deportations. That reveals the true nature of this government. It is not the deaths of two people that caused it to pause, but the fear that images of the dead could damage its agenda and that the lawsuits already filed could carry personal consequences. An order that saves lives because it avoids damaging headlines is not a change of course. It is a calculation.