Biddeford hearing put spotlight on Trump and Republicans’ lawless, depraved deportation agenda

On Monday morning, I joined roughly 200 others in the Biddeford High School auditorium to witness a congressional hearing on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s use of force in the killing of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero.

As editor of a daily news site, I know too well how President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda has been executed in states across the country, including my own. I’ve read and edited stories every day about policy changes, court battles, arrest quotas, people being snatched off the streets. You almost become numb to it. 

I also have friends who are immigrants, doing everything asked of them and still living in fear that their children will come home to an empty house and parents en route to a detention center on the other side of the country.

Despite all of this knowledge, I still found myself shocked to hear about the utter disregard for human life that this shooting, and the silence that has followed, has shown. 

The lie that the federal government is merely going after “criminals” who are “abusing our system” has once again been exposed and it is clear that the country is being run by people intent on terrorizing America’s immigrant population.

And those communities — our communities — are tired, and scared, and have been doing all they can to support each other. On top of being devastated by that reality, I also came away from the hearing in awe of the fact that these grassroots efforts have been able to resist those forces bent on their demise.

It is daunting, particularly with the massive infusion of funds gifted to ICE by Congress, but something that diverse panel showed is that there is a role for everyone: advocacy; legal help; providing rides, a meal or a few bucks; or even attending a “shadow” hearing in a Maine high school auditorium. 

During the hearing, we heard about how on a Monday morning in July, masked federal agents descended on the southern Maine community and tried to apprehend a man who was not their target and had done nothing wrong and then shot and killed him. How they immediately fled the scene, and in the month since have provided zero information or communication with the town, the family, and the officials seeking answers and justice.

Ben Gideon, legal representation for the Guerrero family, said that neither the FBI nor the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reached out to the family to investigate the shooting. “As far as we can tell the federal government has chosen to turn a blind eye completely,” Gideon told reporters afterwards. 

Biddeford Mayor Liam LaFountain described how local law enforcement had to secure “the aftermath of a scene we were not permitted to investigate,” and then how the city stood up mental health and crisis support for the traumatized community of 22,500 people, many of whom have now “retreated from public life.”

He described talking with a mother who will not be sending her daughter to Kindergarten when school begins later this month.

“Federal enforcement actions do not end when agents leave,” LaFountain told the panel. “The authority was federal, the burden is local.”

We heard about how, amid a dearth of official information, reporting into the history of the suspected shooter uncovered a record of violence, raising major questions about training and vetting processes for an immigration crackdown that since July 2025 has received $240 billion in taxpayer dollars to fuel their detention and deportation operations.

“Congress cannot continue expanding power without expanding what restrains it,” LaFountain said.

LaFountain also said that if media reports are accurate, the individual “would never be hired” by Biddeford Police. He also noted that despite the less than $10 million budget, all officers wear bodycams, which was not the case with the ICE agents that day.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said Republicans on the committee have refused to provide any oversight of ICE, forcing Democrats to hold shadow field hearings in Houston, New Orleans, Chicago, Minneapolis, New Jersey — and now Biddeford.

We heard about how the Trump administration has cut off all legal pathways to immigration. Sue Roche, executive director of Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, said that has created “chaos, fear and confusion” for New Mainers.

We tell immigrants to follow the rules, meet the deadlines imposed upon them, file paperwork, attend hearings, said Mufalo Chitam, executive director of the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition. We “tell them to live normal lives,” she said, yet 70% of people apprehended had no criminal conviction.

In Maine, federal agents have specifically targeted asylum seekers, said Roche, whose organization provides legal aid to immigrants. Even those who are detained for overstaying their visa, that is a civil infraction that Roche described as “paperwork problems” that don’t “merit a militarized response.”

“Every human has constitutional rights,” Roche said, “this administration is trying to make people forget it.”

Amid Trump administration silence, national Democrats hold ‘shadow’ hearing on fatal ICE shooting

We heard about how Maine’s immigrant community had been preparing for this since January 2025. And how that early organizing, which included establishing an ICE watch hotline and a solidarity fund, has allowed many families to shelter in place, or be freed from detention. 

Since DHS launched its enhanced deportation operation in January, the hotline has fielded roughly 18,000 calls, said Chitam.

“ICE never left our state. As we speak, they are still picking people up,” she said, noting there were nearly 2,000 arrests from January to August. 

Since it launched in September 2025, the Maine Solidarity Fund has raised and spent more than $1.8 million, according to Presente! Maine Executive Director Crystal Cron. In addition to providing housing and food support, the majority of this fund has been used for bonds, she said, which people are required to pay before release from detention, regardless of whether they are guilty of breaking any laws. 

Initially, Cron said bonds were typically around $3,000-5,000, but now they are regularly $20,000 to $30,000. But, she noted, most immigrants picked up in Maine “have been able to come home,” which is not the case with immigrant communities in other states she’s heard from.

We also heard about how Guerrero’s shooting confirmed their worst fears.

“To say we are heartbroken does not convey the exhaustion, terror and grief since July 13,” said Cron. 

Before, Chitam said, “people feared what an encounter with ICE could mean.” Now, they know it means “they may not return home.”

There is a “collectively shared fear that mistaken identity could mean our death,” she added, noting that the week of Guerrero’s death, the hotline was called 128 times by people seeking guidance and support.

And we heard from Guerrero’s parents, who bravely traveled to the U.S. from Colombia, to ensure that their grief and calls for justice would be included in the public record.

Omar Durán Plata and Dora Guerrero described a kind, hardworking, and loving son. 

“Our dream was to be reunited and hold each other again,” Durán Plata said through a translator. Durán Plata said they ask only of God and the justice system that his case be brought to light.

And after hearing all that was said, I left feeling deeply that anyone, particularly those who have a semblance of power, who stands in the way of that justice and who does not try to stop these operations is complicit.