ICE did not share details about why the officer feared for his safety.
Maine’s top prosecutor said the incident involved an officer with ICE’s Enforcement Removal Operations division and that the agent was placed on leave pending an investigation.
Initial reports indicate that “the subject attempted to flee in a vehicle toward the officer and was shot,” said Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, a Democrat.
The name of the deceased man will not be released until he has been positively identified and his family has been informed, the statement added.
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General, which oversees ICE, is taking over the investigation, according to Sen. Susan Collins, Republican representing Maine.
Maine Sen. Angus King, a political independent, said DHS chief Markwayne Mullin initially told him the person who was shot was the target of an arrest warrant in an immigration raid.
But hours later, King said Mullin called him to tell him the man was not in fact the target of an arrest warrant, his office told the BBC.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills said the death of a man the government wasn’t even looking for “makes this tragedy even more disturbing and infuriating.”
“This highlights the reckless and haphazard manner in which immigration enforcement operations are being conducted in Maine and across the country,” she wrote on X.
The person killed was a Colombian national, the Colombian embassy confirmed.
The embassy said it had “requested information and clarification” from DHS “regarding the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate death and would continue to monitor the matter closely as the investigation progresses.”
According to the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, the person killed was a 26-year-old Colombian authorized to work in the United States.
“He was a member of our community, a neighbor and a human being whose life was tragically cut short,” the organization said in a statement, which did not name the man.
Protests broke out in Biddeford, 30 miles south of Portland, following the shooting. Others gathered outside the entrance to Collins’ office to protest his vote to defund ICE.
The senator called for a “full and impartial investigation into what happened.”
A witness told the Biddeford Gazetteexternal that around 7:20 a.m. local time, he saw the lights flashing of an unmarked white SUV and “at least two agents wearing green ICE vests.”
Lucas Scott, a Biddeford resident, said officers were shouting as they surrounded a white sedan. He then heard at least four gunshots.
Another witness told the Associated Press (AP)external According to the news agency, the man who was killed lived nearby with his wife and daughter.
“I saw a woman fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body on the ground,” Mary Hayes said.
“I saw a little girl crying with a little pink backpack because she will never see her father again.”
Sen. King said Mullin, the DHS chief, told him the man was shot after he tried to drive his car toward police.
“He was in a vehicle – exited the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was ‘weaponized’ the vehicle and was shot by an ICE agent,” King said.
He added that the officers involved were not wearing body cameras and that authorities would investigate whether deadly force was necessary.
“That’s the purpose of this investigation and I certainly intend to stay afterward to do everything I can to make sure the investigation is as transparent and thorough as possible,” King said, according to the AP.
The incident is drawing renewed attention from DHS and ICE.
On July 7, an ICE agent fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old builder, as he drove to a construction site in Houston.
Federal officials later acknowledged that the Mexican man was not the intended target of the crackdown, but they said he tried to run over an ICE agent.
Mullin took over as DHS director in March, replacing Kristi Noem after she was fired by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Noem’s tenure was marked by fatal shootings by immigration agents of two protesters, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, both U.S. citizens.
The deaths of Pretti and Good came after the Trump administration announced increased immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota and other states.
Federal authorities launched a similar operation in Maine in January, dubbed Operation Catch of the Day.
Civil rights organizations have filed a lawsuit over alleged aggressive tactics by federal agents during law enforcement surges.
