“TRAGEDY”
The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente Maine, which jointly identified the victim but did not name him, said the man was authorised to work in the US.
“We will not let this death be reduced to a footnote in this administration’s enforcement statistics,” said Crystal Cron, executive director of Presente Maine.
Governor Janet Mills, citing an unconfirmed US news report that the man shot was not the intended target of the ICE operation, said she was “horrified by this tragedy”.
“This development makes this tragedy even more disturbing and infuriating, and it underscores the reckless and haphazard manner in which immigration enforcement operations are being conducted in Maine and across the country,” she wrote on X.
Images from the scene showed a police cordon in place on a residential street, with a forensics unit stationed next to a red tent. Some people placed candles and flowers on the street nearby.
Protesters rallied in the area with signs reading “ICE Out!” and gathered at the office of Maine’s other senator, Susan Collins, a member of Trump’s Republican party.
“A person has died, and their loved ones and the people of our community deserve clear answers about what happened,” Biddeford Mayor Liam LaFountain said in a statement.
Tasked with enforcing Trump’s immigration crackdown, ICE’s heavily armed agents have faced nationwide backlash for aggressive tactics, and for the shooting deaths of two US citizens this year in Minneapolis.