Maine governor urges Congress to reform or abolish ICE after fatal shooting
President Trump reversed an order temporarily halting ICE traffic stops.
As a new video emerged capturing gunshots and yelling in a fatal shooting in Maine involving federal immigration officers, the state's governor called on Congress to immediately reform and rein in ICE "before more families are robbed of a loved one."
Maine Gov. Janet Mills spoke out in a letter on Wednesday, the same day President Donald Trump overturned a temporary pause in traffic stops made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
An investigation into Monday's shooting in Biddeford, Maine, that left a Colombian migrant dead during a traffic stop continued on Wednesday after Maine Sen. Angus King said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the man who was killed was not the target of the ICE enforcement operation.
"Before more families are robbed of a loved one, this violence has to end. Before one more community is robbed of its peace and security, this has to end. Before more gunshots shatter another windshield, steal another person’s life and fracture the freedom of all who seek peace, this has to end," Mills wrote in her letter to the Maine Congressional Delegation.
Mills added, "ICE needs to be fundamentally reformed, and if not, then it is time to abolish it."
The shooting of 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Guerrero, a married father of a 3-year-old child, was one of three incidents in eight days in which migrants have been killed during traffic stops by federal immigration officers. The deaths came after American citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good were fatally shot in separate incidents involving federal immigration agents in January in Minneapolis.
On Tuesday, a Mexican national, who has not been identified, was killed when he allegedly ran from a traffic stop by agents from ICE and Homeland Security in St. Augustine, Florida, and was struck by a tractor-trailer truck, Florida authorities said.
Earlier this month, another Mexican national, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was fatally shot by an ICE officer during a traffic stop in Houston. Local elected leaders said Salgado was not the target of the ICE operation.
"We demand help to clarify what happened and justice, as it's a huge pain that is affecting our family," Guerrero's sister, Angie Carolina Duran, said in an interview with RCN Television in Colombia on Wednesday.
Duran said described her brother as someone who was "wise" and "never got into trouble."
"He only commuted from work back to his home, that's it. He was devoted to his family," Duran said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro released a statement on Wednesday, saying, "What has happened in Maine is a murder of a Colombian, a Latin American, at the hands of the US government."
"They killed him for believing him to be an inferior being without rights, and as a person, he had all the rights conferred on a human being simply for being born, and he was a citizen with rights in the US," Petro said. "I expect from the Colombian foreign service in the U.S. the fastest legal and human action so that the murderers pay for their homicide."
Trump's decision on Wednesday to allow federal immigration officers to resume traffic stops came a day after Mullin gave the directive halting them.
Trump's order also came as large groups of protesters took to the streets in multiple cities in Maine, demanding an independent and transparent investigation of Guerrero's death.
Trump said that ICE could not give up vehicle stops in the wake of multiple killings by federal immigration agents this month.
"In order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform.
Trump also said in his post that "the men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done."
As the president's order "immediately" went into effect, ABC News obtained new home security video taken near the scene of Monday's fatal shooting of Guerrero in Biddeford.
The video appeared to capture the sound of shouting in the moments before shots are fired at Guerrero, who was driving a car, according to a review of the footage by ABC News. In the footage, someone is heard yelling what sounds like “back, back!” before the sound of five gunshots rings out, followed by one or more cars' revving engines and braking.
The video also appears to show a woman walking by on a sidewalk and then running back in the direction she came from after the shots erupted.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told reporters on Tuesday that Guerrero was fatally shot after federal agents tried to stop the vehicle he was driving.
"He was in a vehicle -- pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was 'weaponized' the vehicle and was shot by an ICE agent," King told reporters Monday morning.
King told ABC News that Guerrero was not the target of the operation and that ICE agents had been given a final order for another man they were targeting to be removed from the country.
King previously said that Mullin initially told him Guerrero was the intended target of the operation.
None of the ICE agents involved in the traffic stop were equipped with body-worn cameras, King said.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told ABC News on Tuesday that Guerrero "illegally entered the United States on September 1, 2023, via the southern border." The DHS spokesperson said Guerrero was granted a work permit in May of 2025.
"To be clear, work authorization does not confer legal status in the United States," the spokesperson said in a statement.
The FBI is leading the investigation into the shooting of Guerrero.
Two Maine immigration advocacy groups -- Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition (MIRC) and the Presente! -- issued a joint statement this week, saying Guerrero was a Colombian man whom they claimed was authorized to work in the United States and had a Social Security number.
The groups called for a "prompt, independent, and transparent investigation." They also called for a full accounting of every agency and officer involved as well as the preservation of all body-camera footage, surveillance footage, and communications between the federal officials involved.
"ICE must not be allowed to investigate itself or control the public narrative surrounding a death in which its personnel or operations were involved," the groups said.
The Colombian Embassy in Washington, D.C., said it is providing consular assistance to Guerrero's family and has requested "information and clarification" about the shooting from DHS.
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