In the small Maine town of Biddeford there is a big dried red stain on the street. Spray painted next to it are the words, “This is Blood”. It was the scene of the second ICE ambush and killing in the last week. As usual, there are different versions of what actually happened. ICE agents were not wearing body cameras when they pulled over twenty-six year old Joan Sebastian Guerrero. It turns out he was not the intended target of the agents. He also had valid work authorization and a Social Security number. He was a food delivery driver with a partner and a three year old daughter. Neighbors described him as “a good person.” Once again, the ICE excuse was he was using his vehicle as a weapon to ram agents and get away. Eyewitnesses dispute that. The Department of Homeland Security issued new orders today halting traffic stops.
Just last week in Houston, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo a construction worker was driving his van with his brother and two other men to a work site. He was a husband and the father of three grown sons. He had been in the country undocumented for thirty-five years. His family said he was close to obtaining legal status in the US. His son said his father knew what to do if approached by ICE agents. The ICE vehicle that stopped him was unmarked and his son believes his father thought he was going to be robbed. Again, disagreements over the ICE agents’ version of what really happened. They say Araujo was trying to ram them and they shot him. Others in the van dispute that. ICE has since admitted it made a mistake and Araujo was not the subject of their warrant.
Eight people have been shot and killed by ICE agents under orders to round up two thousand undocumented immigrants every day. Homeland Security says they are looking for people with a history of violent crime. Guerrero and Araujo had no criminal records. Two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by ICE agents as they took part in anti-ICE demonstrations in Minneapolis in January. After stonewalling, the federal government has finely turned over evidence on the killings of Good and Pretti to Minnesota prosecutors so they can launch a criminal investigation. To date, no ICE agent has been criminally charged in any of the killings.
We’re shocked when we hear of the governments of Iran or China rounding up people and killing them or sending them to prison or detention centers for protesting their governments. If someone is here illegally, they deserve a hearing, isn’t this what we believe as a country? Do we want to be a country that kidnaps people off the street at gunpoint and sends them off to detention centers and eventually sends them to countries they didn’t even come from?American Oversight is a non partisan, nonprofit watchdog that tries to advance truth and accountability. A Freedom of Information request of government records found 12,000 new ICE agents were hired in less than a year. It also found a 353 percent increase in the use of force incidents involving officers in the first two months of Trump’s second term.
These ICE agents are power hungry incompetents who are under pressure from Trump to purge the country of people, Trump has said are, “poisoning the blood of our country.” “Poisoning the blood” has a history. Critics say it’s the language of white supremacists. Some compare it to Hitler’s writing that the mixing of races is “blood poisoning.”
This is happening every day in cities and small towns all over the country. Neighbors are watching out their windows as this madness comes to their block. We have elected a government that said it would do this and its keeping its promise. That stain on the street in Biddeford is a stain on all of us.
Leave a Reply