By NAN News Editor | NewsAmericasNow.com
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. July 14, 2026: A federal immigration agent shot and killed a man in a vehicle Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine – the second fatal shooting by an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agent in a week, and the latest entry in a death toll that is now impossible to ignore.
At least 8 people have been shot and killed by federal immigration agents since January 2025, out of at least 27 shooting incidents involving ICE and Customs and Border Protection personnel. Separately, at least 51 immigrants have died in ICE custody over that same period – a toll that already made 2025 the deadliest year in ICE detention in more than two decades, and one that 2026 is on pace to surpass.
Monday In Maine
Details remain scarce nearly a day after the Biddeford shooting. According to Maine’s attorney general, a deportation officer was carrying out an enforcement operation tied to a final removal order when the man he was pursuing allegedly drove toward the officer, who then opened fire. Neighbors described a different scene in the moments after: a car spinning through an intersection, an agent shouting that the driver had tried to run him over, and a woman and child left screaming at the scene. Two immigrant advocacy groups identified the man as a 26-year-old Colombian with a partner and young child, though that account has not been independently confirmed by authorities.
As has become a pattern in these encounters, the agents involved were not wearing body cameras. Senator Angus King of Maine said as much after speaking directly with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Homeland Security had issued no public statement more than eight hours after the shooting.
It was the second such killing in a week. Last Monday, agents in Houston fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican construction worker who had lived in Texas for 35 years and reportedly had a work permit application pending. ICE said the officer fired in self-defense after Salgado Araujo used his vehicle as a weapon; his family disputes that account, saying they learned of his death from social media rather than from the government.
A Broader, Documented Toll
The two deaths this month sit inside a much larger pattern. Federal immigration agents have shot at people at least 27 times since January 2025, according to reporting compiled by The Trace, with many of those shootings occurring not during planned operations but during traffic stops or as individuals attempted to drive away from agents.
The custody deaths are tracked and published by ICE itself, through a legally mandated reporting system. That list – running from January 2025 through early June 2026 – names at least 51 people who have died in ICE custody, a figure that closely matches Human Rights Watch’s independent June 2026 analysis documenting 52 deaths in custody over roughly the same window, drawn from ICE’s own Detainee Death Reporting records.
ICE recorded 33 deaths in custody in 2025 alone – the highest annual total in more than two decades, surpassing even the previous record set in 2004. As of early July 2026, at least 21 more deaths have already been recorded this year, putting 2026 on pace to break last year’s record. Human Rights Watch found the mortality rate in custody rose roughly 140 percent between the first year of the current administration and the year prior – an increase disproportionate even to the sharp rise in the number of people being detained.
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry has separately confirmed that 17 Mexican nationals have died in connection with ICE enforcement since the crackdown began – 14 of them inside detention facilities, three during enforcement operations in the field.
Names Behind The Numbers
ICE’s own published records give each death a name, a nationality, and a date. Among them: Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, a 41-year-old Afghan citizen who served alongside U.S. forces for over a decade and died less than a day after being detained. Emmanuel Damas, 56, of Haiti, whose family says he died from an untreated toothache and related infection. Royer Pérez Jiménez, 19, of Mexico. Victor Manuel Díaz, whose family disputes ICE’s account that his death was a suicide. Geraldo Lunas Campos, whose death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation by the El Paso County Medical Examiner, after witnesses reported he was choked by guards as he said he could not breathe – an account ICE initially described differently before revising it.
The list spans nationalities from Afghanistan to Vietnam, Cuba to Cambodia, Colombia to China. Ages range from 19 to 68. By law, ICE is required to publish detailed reports on each custody death within 90 days – a deadline the agency has repeatedly missed this year, according to NBC News reporting, prompting additional scrutiny over transparency even as the death toll climbs.
THE DEAD
Here are all the immigrants who have died in ICE custody since Donald Trump came into office per US ICE’s own published data.
Date of Death Name
June 4, 2026 Artmeladze, Mamuka
April 28, 2026 Adan Gonzalez, Denny
April 12, 2026 Carbonell Betancourt, Aled
April 11, 2026 Cabrera Clemente, Alejandro
April 1, 2026 Bui, Tuan Van
March 25, 2026 Ramos Solano, Jose Guadalupe
March 16, 2026 Perez Jimenez, Royer
March 14, 2026 Paktiawal, Mohammad Nazeer
March 2, 2026 Damas, Emmanuel
March 1, 2026 Najafabadi, Pejman Karshenas
February 27, 2026 Gutierrez Reyes, Alberto
February 16, 2026 Garcia Hernandez, Jairo
February 16, 2026 Sim, Lorth
January 14, 2026 Diaz, Victor Manuel
January 14, 2026 Sanchez Dominguez, Heber
January 9, 2026 La, Parady
January 6, 2026 Yanez Cruz, Luis
January 5, 2026 Nunez Caceres, Luis
January 3, 2026 Lunas Campos, Geraldo
December 15, 2025 Gantchev, Nenko Stanev
December 14, 2025 Francisco Rodriguez, Delvin
December 14, 2025 Abdulkadir, Fouad Saeed
December 12, 2025 Brutus, Jean Wilson
December 6, 2025 Sachiwani, Shiraz Fateh Ali
December 5, 2025 Montejo, Pete Sumalo
December 3, 2025 Gaspar-Andres, Francisco
October 25, 2025 Wong, Kai Yin
October 23, 2025 Garcia-Aviles, Gabriel
October 23, 2025 Castro Rivera, Jose
October 11, 2025 Saleh, Hasan Ali Moh’d
October 4, 2025 Cruz-Silva, Leo
September 30, 2025 Garcia Hernandez, Miguel Angel
September 29, 2025 Xie, Huabing
September 24, 2025 Guzman Fuentes, Norlan
September 22, 2025 Ayala Uribe, Ismael
September 18, 2025 Reyes, Banegas
September 12, 2025 Villegas Gonzalez, Silverio
September 8, 2025 Duarte Rascon, Oscar
August 31, 2025 Batrez Vargas, Lorenzo Antonio
August 5, 2025 Ge, Chaofeng
July 19, 2025 Phan, Tien Xuan
June 26, 2025 Perez, Isidro
June 23, 2025 Noviello, Johnny
June 7, 2025 Molina-Veya, Jesus
May 5, 2025 Avelleneda-Delgado, Abelardo
April 25, 2025 Blaise, Marie Ange
April 16, 2025 Nguyen, Nhon Ngoc
April 8, 2025 Rayo-Garzon, Brayan
February 23, 2025 Tineo Martinez, Juan Alexis
February 20, 2025 Chernyak, Maksym
January 29, 2025 Dejene, Serawit Gezahegn
Accountability, Not Just Enforcement
No one disputes that a nation has the right to enforce its immigration laws. What is now squarely in question is what accountability looks like when that enforcement results in death – whether from a bullet fired without a body camera running, or from medical neglect inside a detention cell.
Maine’s governor, its congressional delegation from both parties, and the mayor of Biddeford have all called for full, transparent investigations into Monday’s shooting. Those calls echo a now-familiar refrain: officials asking for answers about deaths that, increasingly, are not isolated incidents but a pattern.
Every name on ICE’s list belonged to someone with a family, a community, and – in dozens of documented cases – no violent criminal record at all. As the 2026 death toll climbs past last year’s record, the question facing Washington is no longer whether these deaths are happening. It’s why they keep happening, and who, if anyone, will be held to account.
