ICE fatally shoots two men in Maine and Texas, sparking protests

ICE officers fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on July 7 during a targeted vehicle stop, then killed another man in Biddeford, Maine, six days later. Federal officials said Araujo was not the intended target, and the Department of Homeland Security said the officer who fired was not wearing a body camera because officers in that field office had not yet been equipped with them.

Araujo was a Mexican national. His family said he had lived in the United States for nearly 35 years, worked for decades in homebuilding and left behind a wife and three children. CBS News reported that he spent 35 years working to send all three of his American citizen sons to college. Mexico said it would seek criminal charges over the deaths of 17 Mexicans in the United States after the Houston shooting, adding diplomatic pressure to a case already drawing anger from immigrant communities.

In Biddeford, Sen. Angus King said Markwayne Mullin told him the man killed in Maine was not the target of the warrant the officers were executing. Officials said the shooting happened after the man allegedly tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against agents. Advocates said the victim was a 26-year-old man from Colombia who was authorized to work in the U.S. Protests followed in Biddeford and Lewiston, and Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau said, "A person was killed. ICE was involved."

The two shootings quickly spilled beyond the two localities where they happened. ICE ordered most vehicle stops suspended around the country after the killings, a sign that the agency’s own tactics were under immediate review as public anger mounted. Federal immigration enforcement officers shot 14 people from September 2025 to February 2026, including two U.S. citizens killed in Minneapolis in January, underscoring how sharply use-of-force concerns have become part of the political fight over immigration enforcement.