Democrats call for investigation into ICE officer shooting in Maine after new reports emerge

Democratic lawmakers are pressing for a review of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hiring practices and continuing calls for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killing of an immigrant in Maine by one of the agency’s officers after news media reported allegations of past violent and threatening behavior by the officer, according to his family members.

The Associated Press, the Portland Press Herald and National Public Radio (NPR) all identified the officer in question as David Brouillette, information that the publications attributed to his family. The outlets also reported allegations that Brouillette had a history of mental health issues and had purportedly subjected his ex-wife to violent, threatening behavior.

The Guardian has not been able to independently verify the allegations or confirm Brouillette’s involvement in the 13 July shooting death in Biddeford, Maine, of Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has not identified Brouillette. And messages left at telephone numbers associated with him were not immediately returned.

Nonetheless, Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi congressman and the top Democrat on the US House’s homeland security committee, told the AP in a statement that the officer’s alleged violent history “directly call into question the supposed vetting and training ICE does of its recruits”.

The exact circumstances of Guerrero’s killing remained unclear on Friday. But the death of the 25-year-old Colombian man has drawn ICE fresh criticism in large part because it had not been a week since an officer of the agency fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas.

Beside the killings of Guerrero and Salgado, there were two other subsequent, ICE-related deaths within the same week that also led the public and lawmakers to call for independent investigations of DHS, which has been carrying out the White House’s aggressive anti-immigrant campaign. There had also been several other people shot to death by federal immigration officers dating back to the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency in early 2025.

“This senseless tragedy must be investigated, and the officer responsible should be taken off our streets and face justice for his actions,” Thompson added in his statement.

In response to the AP’s reporting about Brouillette, an X post attributed from top US Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer similarly criticized the Trump administration for its mass hiring of thousands of ICE officers to help carry out its mass deportation goals.

Schumer, of New York, accused the Trump administration of rushing 12,000 agents “on to our streets without ensuring they were fit to carry a badge and a gun”. The president and his Republican allies then “gave this rogue agency vast power and no accountability”, Schumer continued, arguing that neither Trump nor his party can “disown the deadly consequences” of that approach to ICE.

The AP reported that it obtained a voicemail that Brouillete was alleged to have left his ex-wife, Ashley, in late 2025, around the time he joined ICE.

“Do I think that you should have your … throat cuts or should have had them cut?” says the voicemail, a recording of which NPR aired on Friday. “Yep.”

Brouillette was first identified as the alleged shooter in the Guerrero case by the Portland Press Herald. Then the AP and NPR released reports of their own with Brouillette’s identity.

Brouillette was reported to be a military veteran and former police officer before being hired by ICE in 2025. A day after the deadly shooting, the Atlantic reported that the officer who killed Guerrero had been recently hired by the agency.

DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis said to the AP, “We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers.” But Bis claimed the officer in question has nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience.

Guerrero’s survivors include a three-year-old daughter and the child’s mother, his partner.