FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 13, 2026
CONTACT
Lilly Gonzalez, media@nipnlg.org
Washington, DC — Earlier this morning, ICE shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. It’s the second time in six days that ICE has killed someone in this country. The first was Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, shot to death in Houston on July 7. Neither ICE nor DHS has explained why the agent in Maine opened fire.
In response, National Immigration Project issued the following statement:
Six days. That’s how long it took ICE to kill someone else: a young man in Biddeford, Maine shot dead on his way to work, just as they gunned down Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on his way to work in Houston last week. ICE has not offered an explanation, or an accounting, or even a basic statement acknowledging a person is dead at the hands of one of their officers. Apparently this doesn’t rise to the level of comment.
Everything we’ve learned about Joan Sebastian has been shared by his own community: He was 26 years old, from Colombia, authorized to work, with a wife and young daughter, driving to his job on a Monday morning.
Here’s what we know about ICE and CBP: They kill people. They kill people in the street, in detention centers, and at the border. These are not isolated incidents; these are agencies of death.
Congress handed these agencies close to a quarter trillion dollars. Is this what that money—our money—bought us? Agents hunting down immigrants on their way to work, guns out, bodies left in the street? Gunning down protesters who dare to stand up for their neighbors? Congress owes us a government that makes our lives better, that keeps us safe. Instead, they keep funding the agencies terrorizing our communities.
We are again demanding an independent investigation and real consequences for this killing. Not another closed door review, not another passive voice DHS statement recycling the same lies. Every time ICE walks away from a death without answering for it, they are telling their agents they can keep shooting. If Congress stays silent, it is telling them the same thing.
How many more people will ICE kill with impunity before Congress acts?
Tell your member of Congress NO MORE FUNDING for ICE and CBP. We demand an end to the ICE age.
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