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Masked agents in police vests detained Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz, a civil engineer from Colombia employed by an engineering consulting company, in Portland on Thursday morning. Carvajal-Munoz earned a master’s degree from the University of Maine, and colleagues said he was in the country on a work visa.
An unmarked dark Subaru with tinted windows cut off Carvajal-Munoz as he was driving his grey Hyundai Tucson on Pearl Street in downtown Portland at 8:46 a.m., according to Jesse Smith, who witnessed the encounter.
Agents got out and quickly began using a crowbar to try and pry open his window, Smith said. They then smashed it to pieces. Three agents pulled Carvajal-Munoz out of his car, placed him in their Subaru and drove off, he said.
Smith couldn’t hear what, if anything, the agents said to Carvajal-Munoz but said the whole encounter was very quick.
“In less than two minutes, they smashed his window and dragged him out of the car,” Smith said. “He was compliant. He wasn’t resisting or anything.”
Agents left the car running — with its smashed window — on the street, according to interviews with Smith and a nearby parking attendant. A passerby then drove the vehicle into the parking lot, the attendant said. Smith said Carvajal-Munoz’s bag and keys were left in the passenger seat, and his phone was discarded on the road behind the car.
In a video shared by Smith, a bystander can be heard saying agents “smashed their window in, by force, after the person had their hands up.”
The detention happened as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is conducting what it is calling “Operation Catch of the Day,” an immigration enforcement effort across Maine, “targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens who have terrorized communities,” according to an ICE press release.
But Carvajal-Munoz has no criminal record, according to TLOxp, a background check system from TransUnion.
He is at least the third person detained in Maine whom news outlets have found does not have a criminal record. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment and has not publicized a complete list of people it has detained. The agency said Tuesday it had arrested 50 people in Maine, but the “Worst of the Worst” list it published contained only 13 names as of 12 p.m. Thursday.
“In America, we don’t believe in secret arrests or secret police,” Gov. Janet Mills said during a Thursday press conference on ICE enforcement in Maine.
Agents pulled Carvajal-Munoz over by the Top of the Old Port parking lot between Cumberland and Congress streets, according to Greg Seligman, the parking lot attendant working at the time. Seligman said he didn’t see the interaction but saw the aftermath: Agents had smashed a car window and left the car running, he said.
Seligman said someone who witnessed the detention asked him if they could move the car into the parking lot. The car was still there around 10 a.m., and there was still glass on the road from where Carvajal-Munoz had been pulled over.
Seligman said Portland police responded to 911 calls after the detention but told him there was nothing local police could do as it was a federal operation. The Portland Police Department confirmed it received a report of a disturbance at 8:48 a.m. and that officers responded to check out the area.
Amanda Barnett, Carvajal-Munoz’s co-worker at GEI Consultants in Portland, said Carvajal-Munoz is in Maine legally on a work visa. He has worked at the company for two-and-a-half years, according to another colleague, Ali Brady, who said they started on the same day in June 2023.
“I’m really scared for him,” Barnett said.
GEI Consultants is an engineering and environmental consulting firm with 62 locations across the U.S. and Canada, according to its website. Reached by phone, a company representative confirmed Carvajal-Munoz worked there but declined to comment on the detention while the company was gathering information.
An observer posted a video online of agents in police vests leading Carvajal-Munoz with his hands behind his back to a dark-colored car with flashing lights above the windshield. A second video showed the agents’ car driving away, leaving the car Carvajal-Munoz had been driving in the street.
Barnett said she heard from Carvajal-Munoz’s girlfriend that she received an emergency alert from Carvajal-Munoz’s phone. The girlfriend asked Barnett if he had made it to work. When Barnett and Brady learned he hadn’t, and saw the videos of him online, they both went to Pearl Street.
Carvajal-Munoz received a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Maine in Orono in May 2023, the school confirmed Thursday.
Aaron Gallant, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UMaine, said Carvajal-Munoz was one of the hardest-working students he has had.
“I know that the entire department and faculty look very highly on Juan Sebastian,” Gallant told The Maine Monitor. “I’m shocked to hear this. I know his employers have been extremely happy with his performance as they’ve communicated to me regularly.”
Carvajal-Munoz has three years of experience in geotechnical engineering, geotechnical instrumentation and construction observation, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“I have overseen and conducted geotechnical investigations for communities, cities, and agencies using a wide range of drilling, sampling, and in-situ testing methods,” he wrote on the platform. “My technical expertise includes shallow and deep foundation analysis, soil and rock slope stability analysis, and instrumented pile load testing.”
Maine Monitor deputy editor Erin Rhoda contributed to this report.