US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers fatally shot a driver in a coastal town in Maine on Monday, less than a week after an ICE agent in Houston, Texas, shot and killed a man in a traffic stop during a deportation crackdown there.

Commenting on Monday's shooting nearly 12 hours after the fact, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said an ICE ‌officer, "fearing for public safety," opened fire on the man when he attempted to flee agents trying to stop his vehicle.

The DHS statement made no mention of how the driver might have posed a threat. The encounter occurred around 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) in Biddeford, Maine, about 24 km south of the state's largest city, Portland.

DHS, the parent agency of ICE, gave few other details, except to say that the agents involved were "conducting targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal."

According to DHS, "an illegal alien departed the residence in a vehicle," with ICE officers in pursuit. The agency did not say that the person seen leaving the residence was the same individual whose address was under surveillance.

DHS said the Biddeford Police Department and the FBI "responded to the scene."

Immigration advocates said the person shot was a 26-year-old Colombian man who was authorized to work in the US and had a Social Security number, though they did not name him or say how they were able to identify him.

"This is devastating, enraging, and unacceptable," the Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine said in a joint statement.

Escalating enforcement actions 

Monday's ICE-involved killing in Maine, and the one last Tuesday in Texas, brought to at least seven the number of people shot dead during immigration enforcement operations since January 2025, when President Donald Trump returned to office and launched a campaign of mass deportations.

Immigration roundups have increased even more nationwide in recent weeks. Since the beginning of June, ICE arrests in Maine have more than quadrupled to around 70 per day in early July, according to internal ICE data shared with Reuters by a source.

For much of the day on Monday, what few official details were known of the latest deadly ICE shooting came from elected officials citing second-hand information shared with them by various law enforcement authorities.

US Senator Angus King of Maine, a political independent who caucuses in the Senate with the Democrats, told reporters that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had informed him that the person shot dead by ICE was a man in his 20s who had "weaponized" his vehicle against officers.

According to Mullin, King said, the man killed was the subject of an "arrest warrant based upon his immigration status." But the senator's spokesperson said Mullin later conveyed to him new information that the victim was not the target of a warrant.

King said inquiries into the shooting should focus not on the driver's immigration status but on whether his actions posed a threat to ICE officers "rising to the level that justified deadly force. ‌That's what this investigation is all about."

Eyewitness account

One witness, Daniel Boucher, 71, a caregiver and part-time draftsman who lives in downtown Biddeford, told Reuters he was on the second floor of his apartment when he heard what sounded like firecrackers around 7:30 a.m.

He ran to the window and saw a white SUV ram a smaller white car. After running down to the street level, and from a vantage point just 6 meters away, Boucher saw an ICE officer emerge from the SUV, open a door of the car, and pull the driver out, he recalled, adding that the man had blood on his face and head.

"I remember hearing the victim say, 'But I tried to stop,'" Boucher said, before the wounded man appeared to stop breathing.

Boucher recounted one of the officers on the scene as appearing "very distraught, almost in shock."

In a video clip verified by Reuters, the white car was seen appearing to meander directionless with two men wearing vests on foot trying to stop it, but it was unclear whether the footage was recorded before or after the shooting.

A Reuters photo of the car after it was loaded onto a flatbed tow truck showed the driver's side of the windshield visibly penetrated by what looked like four bullet holes.

Protests break out

Later in the day, scores of demonstrators carried signs and chanted as they marched about a quarter-mile from a Biddeford park to the office of Republican US Senator Susan Collins, who is running for reelection this year.

Ten protesters entered the building's foyer, chanting "ICE out!" and "Vote her out!" and screaming obscenities. There were no arrests or violence.

About 200 protesters marched through town Monday evening carrying banners and chanting "ICE out of Maine." The rally culminated at Mechanics Park, where members of the crowd lit candles and displayed written messages expressing support for migrants.

The shooting came six days after an ICE agent in Houston's heavily Hispanic East End fatally shot a 52-year-old man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, during a traffic stop in what the agency said was a targeted immigration enforcement operation.

ICE said in a statement after that shooting that Salgado, a Mexican national living in the US illegally for over three decades, rammed a law enforcement vehicle with his van and attempted to run down an officer who fired in self-defense.

The agency offered no evidence to support its account. In similar instances over the past year, initial ICE and DHS statements about the use of force have been contradicted by video footage or other evidence, sometimes in court.