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The killing of 26-year-old Colombian immigrant Joan Sebastian Guerrero by ICE agents in Biddeford, Maine, has put the sparsely populated state back in the national spotlight amid the ongoing fallout from a sexual assault allegation that led insurgent Democratic nominee Graham Platner to suspend his campaign for Senate. The nomination will now be determined by Maine Democratic Party delegates in an accelerated — and more crowded — version of the race's contentious primary. Platner had been running to unseat longtime Republican incumbent Susan Collins, a supporter of Donald Trump and his administration's intensifying immigration enforcement policies. Protesters chanting "Vote her out!" marched to Collins's office after Guerrero's shooting was made public. Collins was the deciding vote to approve an additional $70 billion in federal funding for ICE last month. "Voters all across Maine, they don't think there is a way to reform this agency. They think it needs to be abolished," says Nathan Bernard, a Drop Site News correspondent in Maine.
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Just days after the killing of a Mexican immigrant in Texas, immigration agents fatally shot another immigrant, also driving to work, this time in a small town in southern Maine. Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, originally from Colombia, was 26 years old and the father of a 3-year-old daughter. He was reportedly authorized to work in the United States, had been issued a Social Security number and was not the target of any warrant. The Department of Homeland Security has defended the shooting, saying that ICE fired on Guerrero in his car out of fear for "public safety." Witnesses say they say they saw agents dragging Guerrero from the car after the shooting as he told them that he had been trying to "stop." For more, we speak to Biddeford, Maine, resident Eisha Khan, the wife of the town's mayor, Liam LaFountain, about the community's "shell-shocked" response to Guerrero's death.
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