WASHINGTON — The fatal shooting by an ICE officer in Biddeford, Maine, has inflamed the expedited Democratic primary for Senate, with some candidates partly blaming Republican incumbent Susan Collins for voting last month to fund the agency without policy changes.
As Democratic candidates rushed to condemn the shooting, Collins called for an investigation and said Tuesday on Capitol Hill that she has been in frequent touch with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
“I had three conversations with Secretary Mullin yesterday. In the third conversation, we discussed the fact that it would be wise for DHS to have a halt in non-urgent traffic stops until we get this straightened out,” Collins told reporters. “We still are awaiting the facts of this investigation. We don’t know exactly what happened, but there are sufficient critical questions to justify bringing non-emergency traffic stops to a halt.”
The department did just that on Tuesday, NBC News reported, issuing a nationwide, temporary order to ICE officers to stop pursuing people in vehicles after the shooting in Maine and another fatal shooting in Texas.
Some Democratic candidates running to replace Graham Platner as Collins’ general election opponent this fall said they hold Collins partly responsible for the killing.
“His name was Joan Sebastian Guerrero. He was a young father. His three-year-old daughter was in the backseat. He wasn’t the target of an investigation. He was driving to work. ICE shot and killed him. This rogue agency must be abolished,” Troy Jackson said on X. “Susan Collins must be held accountable for funding this terror.”
Nirav Shah told Fox News that ICE “in its current form” shouldn’t have any budget and “needs to be abolished.”
“Senator Collins voted to fully fund ICE without any guardrails. A single late night phone call isn’t going to cut it,” he added on X.
Collins chairs the Appropriations Committee, which controls ICE’s budget and the policy parameters under which it operates. She voted in June for a Republican-only package of $70 billion to fund ICE and U.S. Border Patrol for three years, greenlighting President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown for the rest of his presidency.
Democrats had demanded guardrails to raids and enforcement operations, but after negotiations broke down, the GOP-led Congress passed a bill without their votes.
Another Democrat seeking the party’s nomination for Senate, Shenna Bellows, said the Biddeford killing was “at least the 11th fatal shooting involving ICE or Border Patrol under Trump,” adding: “It’s time to get ICE off our streets.”
On Tuesday, Collins said ICE could do better but defended the agency against its most outspoken critics.
“There’s no doubt that ICE needs to improve its performance, but those who are calling for ICE to be abolished altogether are ignoring absolutely vital safety work that ICE does. ICE investigates human trafficking, drug smuggling, international financial crimes, and child exploitation,” Collins told reporters. “It is imperative that those efforts to stop those crimes continue. So it isn’t an either or.”
Collins said the June bill she voted for included funding for body cameras, although it didn’t contain a mandate to wear them.
“I asked the secretary why those hadn’t made it to the state of Maine yet. He pointed out that when the Democrats shut down government, that contracts were not able to be awarded,” she said. “In addition, larger communities received the body cameras first before smaller communities like those in Maine.”
Collins campaign spokeswoman Blake Kernen responded more directly to her aspiring Democratic opponents.
“It’s unfortunate that Democrats who are desperate to be appointed to run for the Senate are using a tragedy to further their political aspirations,” she said. “It’s important we improve ICE’s performance, and that is why Senator Collins negotiated new protections in the DHS funding process became law in April.”
DHS said in a statement that the shooting occurred Monday, July 13, at about 7:00 a.m. “ICE was conducting targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal. An illegal alien departed the residence in a vehicle. ICE law enforcement attempted to conduct a vehicle stop. The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” DHS said. “The driver of the vehicle was struck, and emergency services were immediately contacted. He passed away from his injuries.”
Authorities have not identified the victim, but the Colombian Embassy identified him as Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national and advocacy groups said he was authorized to work in the United States. Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, said that Mullin told him that the victim “was not the target of the warrant.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said the shooting in Maine was “a natural result of what Republicans decided to do,” in funding ICE for three years without conditions.
“The whole point of Republicans going their own way on ICE funding was to allow this to keep happening,” he said. “We offered very reasonable restrictions that would have prevented the kind of brutality we saw in Maine and in Houston.”
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the shootings are “exactly why we need stronger guardrails around those agencies.”
Schiff, a vice chair of the Democratic Senate campaign arm, said Collins’ vote “will certainly be an issue in the campaign, and should be.”
King said the shooting validates his belief that ICE cannot be funded without policy conditions after DHS agents killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year.
King said he is “extremely” disappointed that the agent involved was not wearing a body camera: “There’s no excuse for it.”
He said the pressure on ICE agents to meet a quota of arrests has, “of course,” contributed to shootings like the one in Maine. “There’s pressure to go after anybody that they can find that has any semblance of a reason for an arrest and detention,” he said.
Collins said she was not aware that ICE officers were facing pressure to carry out more arrests.
“I would be concerned if I knew that to be true,” she said. “But I have not heard that at all.”
NBC News Top Stories wp:paragraph
هلدینگ کاسپین استانبول | خرید ملک در ترکیه | صرافی معتبر ایرانی در ترکیه | خرید و فروش طلا در ترکیه | مهاجرت به ترکیه | واردات و صادرات در ترکیه | نیازمندیهای ترکیه | اخبار ترکیه | اخبار جهانی | توریست ایران | خدمات توریستی در ایران | تورهای گردشگری ایران | هلدینگ اول | خدمات کاریابی و فریلنسری و شغل | مرجع اطلاعات ایران (همه چیز در ایران) | کیف پول و خدمات مالی و پرداخت یار | اخبار ایران | تابلو زنده قیمت ارز در ترکیه و استانبول | صرافی آنلاین ترکیه | قیمت طلا و نقره در ترکیه | سرمایه گذاری در ترکیه | جواهرات در ترکیه | نرخ لحظه ای ارزها در استانبول | قیمت دلار امروز در ترکیه | قیمت دلار استانبول امروز | قیمت لحظه ای دلار | اخبار روز ترکیه استانبول | اپلیکیشن ISTEX | اپلیکیشن قیمت لحظه ای دلار و یورو و لیر و ارزها در ترکیه
About the Author
