A 26-year-old Colombian national with a standing deportation order attempted to use his car as a weapon against ICE agents during an enforcement operation in Biddeford, Maine on Sunday. Joan Sebastian Guerrero didn't make it out of the vehicle.
Federal agents opened fire. Ring camera footage from a nearby residence captured 5-6 gunshots.
The incident, first reported by LifeZette, unfolded during a routine immigration enforcement operation conducted by the Department of Homeland Security. Guerrero, rather than complying with ICE officers, allegedly accelerated his vehicle directly toward agents — turning a standard encounter into a life-or-death situation in seconds. An 18-year-old witness named Lucas Scott told reporters he heard "four shots" from his nearby location.
Video of the aftermath has gone viral, showing the scene in Biddeford after agents neutralized the threat. The footage is difficult to watch, but it answers every question about whether the agents had alternatives. When a car is coming at you, you don't have time to file a committee report.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin's department has not released a detailed public statement as of this writing, but the facts on the ground are fairly straightforward: a man with a deportation order chose a two-ton vehicle over compliance.
The political reaction was instantaneous and predictable. Maine Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, called the incident "disturbing and infuriating." Secretary of State Shenna Bellows went on CNN and declared that ICE agents and "Trump era policies should be held accountable." New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani labeled ICE "a murderous agency" and renewed his call to "abolish ICE."
Senator Angus King of Maine also weighed in, though without offering much in the way of an alternative plan for what agents should do when someone tries to run them over with a car.
Here's what none of them addressed: Guerrero had a deportation order. He was in the country illegally. When federal agents approached him to enforce that order — an order issued through the legal system these same politicians claim to revere — he chose to weaponize his vehicle. The agents on scene had families to go home to.
The "abolish ICE" crowd has a consistency problem. They want immigration law on the books but no one enforcing it. They want agents in the field but unarmed and apologetic. They want deportation orders issued by courts but never actually carried out. The moment enforcement looks like enforcement, it becomes a scandal.
Biddeford, Maine isn't exactly a border town. It's a small coastal city where lobster rolls outnumber immigration raids by about a thousand to one. The fact that ICE operations are now reaching communities like this tells you something about how far the enforcement net has expanded — and how far illegal immigration has spread beyond the southern border.
Governor Mills called it "infuriating." A man tried to kill federal officers with his car. The agents stopped him. The only infuriating part is that he had a deportation order and was still in Biddeford in the first place.
