Colombian president calls ICE shooting in Biddeford murder

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Colombia’s president has called Monday’s death of an immigrant at the hands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Biddeford murder.

In a Tuesday afternoon statement posted to the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Gustavo Petro said that 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national, was “killed because he was deemed an inferior being devoid of rights,” adding that his nation’s foreign service would take “swift legal and humanitarian action” to ensure that the agent or agents responsible are “held accountable for this homicide.”

“May Johan Sebastián Durán rest in peace — a victim of state action driven by the persecution and exclusion of a civilian population group based on ethnic and cultural grounds, practices prohibited worldwide since the Nuremberg trials,” Petro wrote.

Guerrero was killed about 7 a.m. Monday at the intersection of Pool and Hill streets, where he encountered two or three officers with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division.

Questions continue to swirl around what took place between Guerrero and the agents before Monday’s shooting.

Four or five shots were fired when the Colombian allegedly tried to flee from agents, who haven’t been publicly identified but have been placed on administrative leave. The agent believed to have fired the fatal shots was hired by ICE this year, according to The Atlantic magazine. The agent has worked in federal law enforcement since 2017, including with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs police force. The Bangor Daily News hasn’t independently confirmed the agent’s identity.

In a Monday evening statement, an ICE spokesperson said that Guerrero was in the country illegally and had a final removal order against him. But Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who previously suggested Guerrero had “weaponized” his white Kia, told independent U.S. Sen. Angus King that Guerrero wasn’t actually the target of the agents’ administrative warrant.

Two immigrant advocacy groups here, Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine, said in a joint statement that Guerrero, who leaves behind a wife and young daughter, had authorization to work in the United States and had been issued a Social Security number.

The ICE agents weren’t equipped with body cameras, for which Congress approved $20 million in funding, meaning there’s apparently no direct video evidence of what happened between Guerrero and them in the moments before the shooting.

Several federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are participating in the investigation, which the Colombian embassy said it will be monitoring as it stays in touch with Guerrero’s family here.

Maine’s congressional delegation has called on Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to complete a “comprehensive, transparent, and expedited investigation” into Guerrero’s death.

The fallout from the shooting has been swift, sparking protests across the state and prompting ICE to order its agents to cease most vehicle stops, except in cases involving people with violent criminal histories wanted for deportation.

This may be at least the 11th fatal shooting involving ICE agents since President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. A shooting last week that left 52-year-old construction worker Lorenzo Araujo dead in Texas also happened during a traffic stop. That doesn’t include deaths of those in the agency’s custody. As of July 6, at least 21 people have died in immigration detention centers in 2026, on top of 33 who died last year, according to the National Immigration Project.

Earlier this year, Maine became the latest state to see a surge in ICE agents as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Catch of the Day. That surge was cut short amid a nationwide pushback against the agency’s tactics following the fatal shootings of two protesters in Minneapolis.

Of the nearly 200 detained in Maine during the January ICE surge, only 11 had criminal convictions, undercutting the Trump administration’s claim that it was targeting the “worst of the worst.”

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly noted Guerrero’s age. He was 25 when he was fatally shot.