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Two fatal shootings within the span of a week have heightened scrutiny of immigration agents and the leadership of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, as Democratic lawmakers argue that new quotas for arrests are leading to violence.
In an emotional press conference, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus unleashed on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency several of the caucus’s members have argued must be disbanded.
“This is a failure of leadership to allow ICE to continue to go on a rampage, a killing spree,” Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), the chair of the caucus, said Tuesday morning.
There are parallels between the two deadly incidents involving ICE.
In both cases, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, were not the intended targets of the searches that ultimately resulted in their deaths.
In each case, the officers involved were not wearing body cameras, but ICE has leveled claims the men shot and killed were at fault.
ICE said Salgado Araujo had weaponized his vehicle — claims the other men in the car, where he was shot, said are false.
Mullin initially told Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) that Guerrero had weaponized his vehicle, while the first statement issued by ICE 12 hours later claimed the driver fled the scene. The agency argued his doing so resulted in a “public safety threat” that prompted the officer to fire.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) offered a scathing assessment of ICE.
“This is an agency that is targeting, that is profiling, that is stalking Latinos across the country,” he said, adding he was not surprised both of the men who were killed were not the people law enforcement was initially seeking.
He noted that ICE said neither of the two dead men was the target of law enforcement.
“I think there’s a reason for that, because they have contracted people who are essentially bounty hunters, as well as their regular agents, to go out in the streets to look for people,” said Castro, who added that immigration agents were often looking for construction workers like Salgado Araujo.
“They don’t need names on a paper. They’re driving around to see who’s brown, driving around to see and listen to who speaks Spanish out in public, and then they’re stopping those people. They’re asking them whether they have papers, and in these last two cases, they’ve engaged in cold-blooded murder.”
In response to a question about Castro’s comments, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said, “allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE.”
“What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity,” the spokesperson said. “Law enforcement officers use ‘reasonable suspicion’ to investigate immigration status and probable cause to make arrests consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court has already vindicated us on these practices.”
Mullin has spoken with some lawmakers, but he has yet to publicly address the shootings, prompting outrage from Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), who noted the secretary pledged during his confirmation hearing to keep DHS from being “the lead story every single day.”
“When will this madness stop? When he took his position, Secretary Mullin said that his goal was to get the department off the front page of the news,” Magaziner said on the House floor.
“Well, you’re back on the goddamn front page now, with two innocent people gunned down in broad daylight,” he yelled, while waving a newspaper in the air.
Multiple outlets reported Tuesday that ICE would temporarily halt the practice of traffic stops, but it’s unclear to what extent the agency told officers to limit the practice.
ICE itself would also not confirm the shift.
“We are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets. We will not disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics,” a spokesperson said.
But Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican facing a crucial reelection race this fall that could determine whether the GOP retains its Senate majority, said she spoke with Mullin on Monday night and urged him to cease all nonurgent vehicle stops after the shooting in Biddeford.
“I am encouraged that the Department has agreed to do so,” she said in a post on the social platform X.
King, Maine’s other senator, questioned in remarks on CNN whether the shooting of Guerrero would pass legal muster. ICE policy directs agents not to fire at vehicles, and in court, police are insulated from prosecution only if they can prove they felt they or the public were in danger.
Once Guerrero’s car careened to a stop, footage shared online shows what appears to be a man slumping out onto the pavement, already dead, as ICE officers nonetheless grab his arms and move them behind his back to handcuff him.
“The bottom line is you have to either fear for your own safety or the safety of others. And so far, we haven’t seen evidence of that,” King said, blasting the agency for failing to deploy body cameras despite a wealth of funding given to ICE by Congress when funding it through the rest of President Trump’s term.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), who represents the district where Salgado Araujo was shot, said the shift on traffic stops is one of the reforms she’s been demanding, and one she plans to push Mullin to clarify during a planned Wednesday meeting.
“It’s a signal that they may finally be listening,” she said, though she blasted the ICE stops for repeatedly using an “unmarked car, no bells, no whistles, no cherry top at the top of the car, no sign, no lights, and the people never identified themselves.”
“I’m concerned because he did say that he was going to handle things at a more low-key level,” she said.
Espaillat said DHS was not doing enough to address what he called an “endemic” issue.
“Any agency that finds themselves — could be a police department, for that matter — finds themselves in this kind of predicament has to reexamine its recruitment practices, right? Its training component, its mental fitness, a strong policy on stopping the use of deadly force. All of those things, I think, are important for any law enforcement agency to consider when they have a rash of these kind of behaviors, which is what ICE has right now,” he said.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), whose district includes Biddeford, said at this point she’s “fully in the camp of abolish ICE.”
“They acknowledged that the person was driving away, that the officer wasn’t endangered,” she told The Hill of the shooting in her district. “It was just a public safety question. So it seems like a very flimsy argument for why someone needed to be shot on their way to work and witnessed by their 3-year-old daughter.”
Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus cited the White House specifically as setting ICE’s agenda, one they say has become inherently racist.
“I think you’ll agree with me that when law enforcement has video to prove its case, it releases it right away. They release the video evidence right away. And yet ICE released nothing in either case. In Lorenzo’s case, they literally have not released a shred of evidence to support their claim that he was a danger to them. They were a danger to him,” Castro said.
“They were a danger to the Latino community, and all of this is driven by a racial animus out of the White House. Not just Donald Trump, but Stephen Miller, who is the architect of this racial animus and hatred and bigotry.”
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Adriano Espaillat Angus King Joaquin Castro Markwayne Mullin Seth Magaziner Susan CollinsCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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