Immigration enforcement becomes flashpoint in Maine Senate race after fatal shooting

Troy Jackson, poised to be the Democratic nominee, supports abolishing ICE.

Following the fatal shooting of a 25-year-old Colombian man by a federal agent, the issue of immigration enforcement has become a flashpoint in Maine's Senate race -- one of the most consequential of the year in the fight for control of the Senate.

On July 13, an ICE agent fatally shot Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, after agents tried to stop the car he was driving.

Guerrero was not the target of the operation, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told ABC News. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that Guerrero "illegally entered the United States on September 1, 2023, via the southern border." The DHS spokesperson said Guerrero was granted a work permit in May 2025.

Following the shooting, hundreds of protestors gathered across Biddeford to express their criticism of ICE and support for the victim’s family.

Graham Platner, who won the Democratic primary for Senate in June but withdrew just weeks later after a sexual assault allegation, which he denied, spent his campaign going after Republican Sen. Susan Collins for passing legislation that funded DHS. Platner formally ended his candidacy with a letter in which he slammed ICE in the final line.

Now it's former Maine Senate President and logger Troy Jackson who is poised to take on Collins once the party officially nominates him to replace Platner on the ballot this weekend.

Jackson, who has earned the endorsement of many progressives, has called ICE "a rogue agency," and said it "needs to be dismantled because they give us nothing in this country but heartache and racism."

DHS has condemned rhetoric against ICE, which they say is fueling vehicle attacks against federal officers.

The July 13 shooting also put a spotlight on Collins, who said after the shooting she urged DHS to "cease all non-urgent vehicle stops" and the administration temporarily did. However, soon after, President Donald Trump reversed the pause.

Collins, the Republican chair of the influential Senate Appropriations Committee, has portrayed herself as someone who has a direct line to the administration despite representing a blue state. In January, amid the federal government's deportation crackdown, Collins argued it was her conversations with former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem that led to a slowdown in operations -- which her opponent at the time refuted.

Lance Dutson, a Republican consultant who worked on Collins's previous reelection campaigns, told ABC News that while Democrats may point to Trump's reversal as proof that her re