Washington, DC – Following Monday’s deadly shooting in Maine, the latest reporting confirms that Johan Sebastián, a 25-years-old husband and father who was authorized to work in the United States, was killed by an ICE agent. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin first told Senator Angus King that ICE had killed the man they came for, then called back three hours later to admit that wasn’t true.
This marks the second time in six days that an ICE agent has killed someone in the United States. On July 7, agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop in Houston. No agent involved in either killing has so far faced consequences beyond an internal review. Both Lorenzo and Johan were killed on their way to work.
Armed with $240 billion from Congress and Stephen Miller’s goal of a million deportations a year, ICE has pushed agents to chase arrest quotas at any cost. Agents pursuing those quotas are treating American neighborhoods as hunting grounds, with no accountability.
In the wake of these two deaths, ICE has reportedly ordered agents to pause initiating most vehicle stops nationwide while it retrains officers. A partial, temporary pause on one tactic does not fix the underlying problem: a hastily hired, undertrained force of armed agents operating under exorbitant, politically driven arrest quotas. ICE cannot be trusted to police itself.
Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, issued the following statement:
“The utter disregard for human life is breathtaking. In just six days, ICE agents in two different states shot and killed two fathers, husbands, and providers. Their immigration status is irrelevant. In America, we don’t kill people in the streets because of the way they look. This pattern of unaccountable killings is unconscionable and unconstitutional and must end, period. Congress and DHS owe this country an independent investigation into Lorenzo’s and Johan’s deaths, and they owe us answers about a chaotic and out-of-control deportation quota system that’s terrorizing communities and killing our family members, neighbors, and friends.”
