There is a bloodstain, several feet long, on the
crosswalk and down the curb at the intersection of Pool Street and Hill
Street in Biddeford, Maine.
It is not roped off by crime scene tape. It
has a red tint, but it could be mistaken for some kind of spill. Someone
has written “This Is Blood” in white chalk, because why would someone
in Maine know what it looks like when blood pools in the street and
dries?
On the corner, three women are arranging flowers, candles, and
rosaries. Across the street, in front of a pawnshop and a laundromat,
protesters are gathered with signs: “ICE Out.” All around, journalists
are standing in front of camera setups.
The blood belongs to Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 25-year-old immigrant from Colombia who lived
on the block. On Monday, he was shot and killed by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officers.
The Department of Homeland Security
claimed in a statement that the agent who killed Guerrero discharged his weapon in the name of “public safety.” It was the fifth
vehicle-related killing by ICE agents in the past year and the second
in the past week. ICE confirmed that Guerrero was not their intended
target. Guerrero’s father, Omar Duran, said his son was in the country
legally. He is survived by his wife and three-year-old daughter.
“He had a great vision for getting ahead, so many dreams to fulfill,” Duran told Noticias Caracol, a Colombian news outlet, in Spanish. “My son is a wonderful son — I don’t know why they did that to him.”
Down the street, at a small park, a woman in a white dress chants
“ICE Out” over and over again into a loudspeaker, a relentless call and
response with the handful of other protesters. The flags in the park are
at half-mast. Cars honk their support as they drive by.
On a fence there is another memorial. “A man was lynched here
yesterday,” reads one of the signs. “Maine grieves,” reads another. On
the edge, almost hidden: “There will be trials.” Here, too, are dozens
of flowers and candles.
It was supposed to be very hot Tuesday, in the 90s. There is an eerie
feeling in the air, though, like when a storm is about to come, but no
storm has come to wash away the blood.
Maine’s congressional lawmakers wrote a letter
to the Department of Homeland Security calling for an investigation.
“The facts surrounding this tragedy remain a matter of significant local
concern and necessitate a thorough, objective accounting,” Independent
Sen. Angus King, Republican Sen. Susan Collins, and Democratic Reps.
Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden wrote in the letter. “Given the gravity
of the situation and the understandable anxiety within the Biddeford
community, we urge you to prioritize this investigation.”
The person leading the chant in the park is Mary MacLeod, who lives
in Buxton, Maine, and works in marketing. “It’s just very, very sad that
we are devolving into a nation of cruelty,” she tells Rolling Stone,
“and that cruelty is becoming so normal that we sort of are living with
it and accepting it, and people who are cruel depend on that. They’re
wearing us down, so that cruelty becomes the norm, and it can’t be,
because it’s destroying the best of us, including the young man who was
murdered yesterday, who came to this country to better himself, had a
young family, and by all accounts, is a really lovely person. That’s
what this country was built on, and now we’re destroying it literally
and figuratively.”
“The city was built by French Canadians, like my grandfather,” a man
in a Red Sox shirt and matching hat, Ryan, interjects. An English
explorer arrived
in what would come to be called Biddeford in 1616. It became a mill
town that attracted French Canadian, Irish, and other European
immigrants. In 1880, about half the population of Biddeford was foreign born. According to the Maine Historical Society, the first recorded mosque in America was built in Biddeford by Albanian immigrants.
MacLeod is not affiliated with any activist groups. “I brought the
bullhorn because my husband had it. I had never used it before, and I’m
also not particularly outspoken when it comes to politics. If someone’s
going to try to shout me down, I generally speaking just shut up and
just walk in the other direction. I’m not interested in having this kind
of argument with people. But in this particular case, I thought it was
important to bring out the old bullhorn to get a message out loud and
clear. But it does seem like these days it’s the loudest voices that are
heard. So I figured, ‘OK, so you fight fire with fire and bring a
bullhorn.’”
A boy sits at the corner of Pool and Hill on the stoop of the
pawnshop, which appears to be closed. “I actually saw him get shot. I
just turned 14 last week,” I hear him say to a protester.
I introduce myself and ask if he wants to talk. He sinks a little
when I tell him I am a journalist. He does not want to talk, and I do
not want to pressure a child into discussing something he witnessed that
will likely change his life forever. He leaves after a little while.
One of the women arranging flowers at the memorial says her family
members knew Guerrero, and she had seen him a couple of times. “He was a
good guy. He worked really hard,” she says. According to The New York Times, Guerrero was a food delivery driver and a late-night cleaner at a veterinary clinic.
“It’s scary … scary being brown here,” she says of the ICE presence
in Maine. She grew up in Maine and says it has not always felt this way.
Twenty minutes north in Portland, about 100 people gather in Monument
Square to protest the murder. “ICE pulled the trigger,” activist Cecil
Carey of the Party for Socialism and Liberation says into the
microphone, “Collins gave the gun,” the crowd responds.
Collins has voted for and pushed for increased ICE funding. On June 5, she voted for the Secure America Act, which gives ICE and Customs and Border Protection $69.5 billion through 2029. The money for ICE is focused on hiring new officers and carrying out immigration enforcement operations like deportation.
“There is a straight line from Senator Collins to the lawlessness we
saw yesterday,” Maine Senate candidate Nirav Shah said in a statement.
“It’s clear that Susan Collins is never going to hold ICE accountable
because she is the one bankrolling it. If Mainers want accountability,
there is only one way to get it: retire Susan Collins, abolish this
rogue agency, and fire the people who let it run wild.”
On Tuesday, Collins called for
an end to “non-urgent vehicle stops” by ICE. The Trump administration
obliged, but the president appeared to reverse the decision Wednesday on
social media: “We CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and
effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” he wrote.
Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner dropped out of the race
earlier this month following sexual-assault allegations, and the party
is now organizing to choose a new candidate.
“Susan Collins is the villain,” Todd Chretien of the Democratic
Socialists of America tells the crowd. “We have four months to get rid
of her, and we’re going to have several candidates who are willing to do
that. I would advise you to choose wisely.”
