An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Joan Sebastian Guerrero (also reported as Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero), 26, on July 13, 2026, in Biddeford, Maine. The Department of Homeland Security says Guerrero was in the country illegally and fled when agents tried to stop his vehicle. DHS’s public statement says an officer, fearing for public safety, fired as Guerrero attempted to flee the scene.
Advocacy groups, including the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, dispute the DHS account, saying Guerrero was authorized to work in the United States and had been issued a Social Security number. However, a work permit is not a residency permit, and a Social Security number does not by itself establish lawful status, as Social Security numbers are issued under several categories, including past work authorization, parole, or pending applications.
Sen. Angus King, the U.S. senator from Maine who is registered as an Independent but caucuses with Senate Democrats, said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin personally called him to brief him. According to King, Mullin said during the private call that Guerrero had weaponized his vehicle. A witness, Laura Peters, said she heard people yell “stop” on her home security camera, with no source confirming who was speaking. A separate witness, Daniel Boucher, said he saw Guerrero exit the vehicle bleeding heavily from the head and say “I tried to stop.”
The press is portraying DHS’s initial stop of Guerrero as an error because agents were attempting to arrest a different individual who was subject to a final order of removal. However, there was no error. DHS was conducting surveillance at the correct address, the last known address of the person they were attempting to arrest. Agents then attempted to stop a man who left that property, and it turned out to be Guerrero. Had Guerrero complied with the agents’ commands, the encounter likely would not have turned deadly.
The media’s focus on the fact that Guerrero was not the intended target is irrelevant to his legal status. He was allegedly in the country illegally and allegedly used his vehicle as a weapon. The fact that he was not the original target does not change those allegations or his legal status.
The news stories have emphasized that Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the shooting a murder and said Guerrero was killed because ICE viewed him as an inferior being without rights. Petro conducted no investigation, and no U.S. investigation, autopsy review, or trial had concluded that the shooting was a murder when he made the statement. The Maine State Police and the Maine Attorney General’s Office were still in the early stages of their inquiry. As a foreign head of state, Petro has no jurisdiction or legal standing in a U.S. criminal matter. Under Maine law, murder is a specific legal conclusion that must be established through the U.S. justice system, not through a foreign leader’s public statement. His comments carry no legal weight.
Petro should concentrate on making Colombia a country that people do not want to escape in order to enter the United States illegally. Colombian emigration has multiple drivers, including decades of internal conflict, warring drug cartels, and economic instability.
Apart from the president of Colombia, Democrats are also up in arms over the shooting. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called the shooting a natural result of Republicans funding ICE without conditions, saying the GOP’s approach was intended to allow such incidents to continue. The senator is mistaken, however. Cutting ICE’s budget would not cause illegal aliens to self-deport. Nor would a lack of funding have prevented Guerrero from allegedly attempting to get away from the agents or to use his car as a weapon.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) called the shooting “very disturbing” and said she had heard from a reliable source, though the information had not been confirmed by DHS, that agents shot the wrong person. She said she was pressing DHS for answers. Pingree appears to be conflating thirdhand information with the media narrative that Guerrero was not the original target of the arrest.
However, Guerrero was the person who allegedly attempted to flee and strike an officer with his vehicle. From that perspective, ICE did not shoot the wrong person. Whether the shooting was legally justified is a separate question.
Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson called ICE a rogue agency that should be abolished and blamed Sen. Susan Collins for funding it. Democratic Senate candidate Nirav Shah likewise said ICE, in its current form, should receive no funding and should be abolished. Calls to defund or abolish ICE overlook the practical question of who would enforce immigration law and carry out deportations.
The Biden administration admitted at least 10 million illegal immigrants, and estimates at the start of the second Trump administration placed the total illegal immigrant population in the United States between 18 million and 24 million. If ICE were abolished, as some Democrats have proposed, which agency would deport them?
With all of the angry rhetoric from Democrats and the accusations against ICE, not a single Democrat or mainstream media outlet has encouraged illegal aliens to self-deport.
