Federal immigration agents reportedly shot and killed a driver in Maine, according to a state official and witnesses who saw guns drawn and a body in the street.
In a brief statement Monday morning, Maine’s Democratic House Speaker Ryan Fecteau said “a person was killed” in Biddeford, roughly 15 miles south of Portland. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “was involved,” he said.
“State Police and the Department of Public Safety are now on scene to gather details and would expect the FBI to investigate as well,” according to Fecteau.
Protesters have started to gather near Pool and Hill streets, where images from the scene posted to social media show an unmarked white SUV with flashing police lights that appears to have rammed the passenger’s side of a white sedan, which was stopped at an angle in the middle of an intersection. Bullet holes could be seen in the windshield.
Agents in green vests reading “POLICE” can be seen assisting a person who is lying down on the street beside the car.
Lucas Scott, 18, told the Portland Press Herald that he saw ICE agents in green vests hop out of unmarked vehicles with flashing blue lights. As he turned to see what was happening as he passed through an intersection, he saw an agent draw a firearm and yell at a driver who “was trying to hit the ICE officer,” Scott told the newspaper.
The agent then fired about four shots, he said. “I just heard the popping, but I did see him draw his gun,” he told the Press Herald.
Another witness, Daniel Boucher, said he saw the SUV trying to ram the smaller car.
“He was bleeding profusely from the head,” Boucher told the Press Herald. “He was talking. He said, ‘I tried to stop.’”
Another video from the scene appears to show a white sedan slowly circling the intersection as agents on foot reach for the car’s doors.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment.
The incident is at least the 11th fatal shooting involving federal immigration agents since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second administration and comes less than a week after the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three children who was shot in his car on his way to work in Houston.
Homeland Security has routinely justified shootings with claims that an arrest target has tried to run over agents only for evidence to emerge that contradicts the government’s statements. The administration’s initial statements in the wake of Salgado Araujo’s shooting have also come under intense scrutiny after witnesses disputed the government’s official narrative.
Agents have shot at least 20 people within the last year, and nearly all of them were in their cars.
Maine was among several Democratic-led states that saw a surge of federal agents under the Trump administration’s government-wide efforts to swiftly arrest and detain tens of thousands of immigrants.
ICE has accelerated arrests in recent weeks, fueled by the administration’s mandate to arrest at least 2,000 people daily, while the number of people in detention has exploded to more than 63,000 immigrants in jail-like facilities on any given day. Daily arrests peaked at more than 2,400 last month.
“The Trump administration is fulfilling the promise that President Trump was elected on — deporting criminal illegal aliens,” a White House official told The Independent earlier this month.
ICE’s future and the fate of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda are central to midterm elections this fall, including in Maine, where Democrats are hoping to oust Republican Susan Collins in a bid to tip the balance of power in Congress in one of the most competitive Senate elections of 2026.
“Someone is dead. I don’t have details, and won’t speculate. But this is at least the 11th fatal shooting involving ICE or Border Patrol under Trump. It’s time to get ICE off our streets,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows wrote on X.
Bellows was among several candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for Senate after Graham Platner ended his campaign to criticize ICE in the wake of Monday’s deadly shooting.
“Our team is monitoring this situation very closely and will provide updates as we learn more,” said former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson. “My heart is with Biddeford — and with all Mainers.”
“History teaches us what happens when governments empower armed agents to operate with sweeping authority, limited transparency and too little accountability,” said social worker Paige Loud.
Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban said he will vote to “hold ICE accountable and finally provide accountability for murdering people” if elected.
“This s*** has to stop,” he wrote.
