I See My Father in the Fathers Killed by ICE

A makeshift memorial for Joan Sebastian Guerrero who was fatally shot by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, on July 14, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. —Ryan Murphy—Getty Images Joan Sebastian Guerrero, the 26-year-old man shot by ICE while driving to work on Monday, attended the same school my mother did in Bucaramanga, Colombia: Nuestra Señora del Pilar. My mother remembers Nuestra Señora del Pilar as a place of hushed corridors and wind-swept balconies, where nuns ushered her from class to class. Students went to church every morning. In Maine, Guerrero worked cleaning at a veterinary clinic, and then he delivered food. He loved his three-year-old. A joint statement by the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine said he had legal status, a work permit, a Social Security number. A witness tells the Portland Press Herald that Guerrero’s last words were, "I tried to stop." In one photo from his social media, Guerrero poses before a mirror. Through his clear phone case, you can see two photos of his pregnant wife, displaying her belly, hugging him over his shoulder. One video published by The Bangor Daily News shows agents pulling his unmoving body out of the driver’s seat—then handcuffing him. It is unclear if he is alive. I wondered how much fear must have been in the minds of those ICE agents that they felt the need to still restrain him. Just six days earlier, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed by ICE agents in Houston, this time shot through the passenger window. The ICE agents were in an unmarked vehicle, and though they said they were in pursuit and their emergency lights were on, a video shows they were not. Salgado was dead within minutes. As a Latina, it is impossible for me not to see my father when I think of Guerrero and Araujo. In them, I see men who wanted nothing but a better life for their children. Families like mine can’t help but feel their families’ pain, and fear for each other and our own. In June 2025, my dad got hi