1. United States
2. N.H.
3. Letter

I wrote to you earlier regarding the fatal shooting of 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero by an ICE officer in Biddeford, Maine. I am writing again because asking for an investigation, while necessary, is no longer sufficient. I cannot prove, and therefore will not assert, that this was an extrajudicial killing or an attempted cover-up. The complete evidentiary record has not been released. But the information now available gives me grave reason to fear that this was another unnecessary killing followed by an immediate and inadequate government narrative designed to justify the officers’ actions before the facts had been established. Mr. Durán Guerrero was not the subject of the warrant ICE agents were attempting to execute. The Department of Homeland Security initially supplied Senator Angus King with incorrect information identifying him as the target and later corrected itself. ICE’s public statement says an officer fired because he was “fearing for public safety,” but does not identify the specific imminent threat of death or serious physical injury that justified deadly force. The agents reportedly were not wearing body cameras. Publicly available video shows a chaotic aftermath in which a gravely wounded man was pulled from his vehicle, restrained, and left bleeding on the ground. A witness reported hearing him say, “I tried to stop.” I understand that video of the aftermath does not establish every fact about the moments preceding the shooting. I am not asking you to reach a premature conclusion about criminal liability. I am asking you to recognize the larger institutional danger. These killings are becoming normalized. Again and again, federal immigration agents use aggressive vehicle-interdiction tactics. A person is shot. DHS immediately announces that the vehicle was “weaponized,” that the person attempted to flee, or that an officer feared for safety. Body-camera evidence is missing. Independent evidence is unavailable or delayed. Congress asks questions. Internal investigations begin. Then the public hears little about discipline, prosecution, changes in command, or enforceable reforms. When that sequence produces no meaningful consequences, it teaches officers that their actions will be defended before they are investigated. It teaches agency leadership that conclusory public statements will substitute for evidence. And it teaches the country to accept the preventable death of another human being as an ordinary feature of immigration enforcement. That is a culture of operational impunity. The issue is not whether every ICE officer acts unlawfully. The issue is whether the institution has adequate training, supervision, transparency, discipline, and respect for constitutional limits to be entrusted with operations that predictably create lethal encounters. ICE has now reportedly suspended immigration-related vehicle stops following two fatal shootings within six days, in both cases involving men who were not the intended targets of the operations. That suspension is an acknowledgment that the current practices present a serious danger. It should not be quietly lifted after public attention subsides. The agency’s institutional language also matters. Earlier this year, DHS officially named its Maine enforcement surge “Operation Catch of the Day.” I do not know whether the Biddeford operation was formally conducted under that initiative, and I will not claim that it was. But the government’s decision to describe human beings as a “catch” is profoundly dehumanizing. It encourages the public and officers alike to view immigration enforcement as a hunt rather than an exercise of limited governmental power over people who retain constitutional and human rights. Congress has conducted hearings and questioned administration officials. Yet questioning without consequences is not oversight. Oversight requires Congress to use its legislative, subpoena, confirmation, and appropriations powers. I therefore ask you to support and publicly demand the following: 1. Continue the suspension of ICE vehicle stops until enforceable national standards, training requirements, supervisory review, and body-camera rules are in place. 2. Prohibit immigration officers from firing at moving vehicles unless an unavoidable and independently verifiable imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury exists. Officers should also be trained not to place themselves unnecessarily in the path of vehicles and then rely on the danger created by that positioning to justify shooting. 3. Require ICE agents to verify the identity of a warrant target before initiating a high-risk vehicle stop whenever circumstances reasonably permit. 4. Require body cameras during all field enforcement operations, with meaningful disciplinary consequences when agents fail to activate or properly use them. 5. Establish an independent investigative process for deaths and serious injuries caused by ICE and Customs and Border Protection personnel. The agency whose officers caused the death should not control the investigation. 6. Require public reporting of every immigration-enforcement shooting, including the officer’s identity, the factual basis for the stop, whether the person was the intended target, whether body-camera footage exists, the investigative disposition, and any resulting discipline. 7. Subpoena documents and testimony when DHS provides incomplete, inaccurate, or shifting accounts to Congress. 8. Condition future ICE funding on compliance with these requirements. No additional enforcement funding should be provided without enforceable accountability mechanisms. 9. Require a public accounting of previous fatal shootings and serious uses of force, including whether any officer was disciplined, terminated, referred for prosecution, retrained, or returned to field duty. I am asking you not to allow this death to disappear into another opaque investigation. Mr. Durán Guerrero was not the person ICE was looking for. He was a husband, a father, a worker, and a member of a New England community. His death must not be treated as an unfortunate but acceptable byproduct of immigration enforcement. The constitutional rights to life, due process, freedom from unreasonable seizure, and protection against excessive force do not depend upon citizenship or immigration status. Federal officers do not acquire unlimited authority because their assignment involves immigration. Please tell me not only whether you support an investigation, but what enforceable legislative and appropriations actions you will take to end this pattern.