A US federal immigration officer fatally shot a motorist in Maine on Monday, the second time in a week that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have used deadly force.

Immigrant rights groups identified the man who was killed as a 26-year-old native of Colombia.

The US Department of Homeland Security said in a post on the social platform X that ICE was surveilling an address for a person with a final order of removal. When ICE tried to stop a vehicle driven by someone coming from that address, “The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” the department said.

Senator Angus King previously said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against ICE agents in Biddeford, a coastal city roughly 24 kilometres southwest of Portland.

“He was in a vehicle – pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was ‘weaponised’ the vehicle and was shot by an ICE agent,” King said.

King, a Maine independent, said Mullin also told him the officers were in Biddeford to serve an arrest warrant but that it was for not for the person who was shot. King said Mullin told him that earlier information that the man was the target of an enforcement action was incorrect.

The Maine attorney general’s office said initial statements suggest the motorist was trying to flee in the direction of the agent. The office said the agent who killed him has been placed on leave.

A witness, Daniel Boucher, said he looked out his third-floor window after hearing a “pop, pop, pop” sound and saw a small car “turned 90 degrees to the curb” with an SUV behind it. The driver was wounded and the car started moving down the street until the SUV hit it again, Boucher said.

“His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said, getting choked up. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop’ – clearly heard him say that.”

Boucher said he saw an ICE officer bring a medical bag to where the man was lying before an ambulance and fire truck arrived. At one point, Boucher said, the agent who shot the man walked close to him.

“I was emotional and I just let him have it, and he looked at me and said, ‘He tried to run me over,’ or something to that effect," Boucher said. "I don’t remember his exact words.”

The agents involved in the shooting didn’t have body-worn cameras, King said.

“The question is: What did he do with his vehicle?” King said. “Were officers threatened? Were the threats rising to the level that justified deadly force?”

Two advocacy groups – the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! – said the man who was killed was authorised to work in the US.

Mary Hayes, who lives close to where the shooting happened, said the man lived nearby with his wife and daughter.

“I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body on the ground,” Hayes told the AP as she held a piece of cardboard with “No ICE Stop ICE” written on it.

“I watched a little girl crying with a little pink backpack on because she’s never going to see her father again.”

The Colombian Embassy said it is in contact with US authorities and “working to formally confirm the individual’s identity and nationality.”

Dozens of demonstrators critical of ICE and Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown gathered in Biddeford within hours of the shooting.

Amy Goodman, who is from nearby Wells, arrived with a sign that said “Stop Killing Us” and directed it toward police working at the scene.

“Sadly, it’s something we’re seeing a whole lot more often lately, and I’m mad about it,” said Goodman. (AP)



Edited by Cecil Wong