Idaho voters will decide whether to roll back the state’s abortion ban, the secretary of state told the group behind the initiative in a letter Monday, joining three other states where abortion will be directly on the ballot on Nov. 3.
Voters in Virginia and Nevada — both states where abortion is already legal through at least 24 weeks of pregnancy — are considering state constitutional amendments to create a right to abortion.
And in Missouri, which in 2024 became the first state to use a constitutional amendment to undo an abortion ban, voters are being asked to override that to bring back an abortion ban, with limited exceptions, and to write into the state constitution a ban on some gender-affirming care for minors.
Here's a look at the situation.
The measure put on Idaho's ballot through a volunteer-run petition drive would create a law, not an amendment to the state constitution.
Idahoans United for Women and Families, which is leading the campaign, shared with The Associated Press a letter from state election officials Monday verifying that it has qualified for the ballot.
It would allow abortion until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be somewhere past 21 weeks into a pregnancy, though there’s no fixed time frame. The change would make the state's law similar to what it was before the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban abortion.
Idaho now is one of six states where an abortion ban at all stages of pregnancy does not include exceptions for the health of the girl or woman. Like most other bans, it does allow abortion to save the life of the woman or in pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
It also became the first state, in 2023, to make it a crime to help a minor obtain an abortion without the consent of their parents. Despite a court challenge, most parts of that law have remained intact.
David Ripley, the CEO of the anti-abortion group Idaho Chooses Life, is preparing to campaign against the measure.
“This is going to have a profound impact on Idaho,” he said, “and will basically invalidate virtually every pro-life law that the legislature has enacted over the last 30 to 40 years.”
Whichever way the ballot measure vote goes in Missouri, it's already a state with several firsts after Roe was overturned.
It was the first state to begin enforcing a ban on abortion throughout pregnancy. And in 2024, it became the first state to use a ballot measure to roll back a ban. Even after that, though, abortion access was deeply limited by state regulations until a court ruling in June blocked enforcement of many of them.
In the state, where Republicans dominate the government, there have been legal battles surrounding the language of the constitutional amendment. The one before voters, unlike the previous ban, would allow exceptions in the cases of medical emergencies and fetal anomalies. Like the earlier one, there would be exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
Both Nevada and Virginia currently allow abortion through at least 24 weeks of pregnancy. That means amendments to preserve the right to an abortion would likely not have a major impact on access to abortion in either state.
The amendments could be factors, however, in driving voter turnout in states where both Democrats and Republicans have prevailed in statewide elections in the last five years.
Nevada voters already approved the amendment in 2024 by a nearly 2 to 1 margin. But the state constitution calls for amendments to pass in public votes twice before they take effect.
Some groups want to see state laws that go further than Roe v. Wade did and lift restrictions on abortions throughout pregnancy.
In June, the National Abortion Federation, an organization of abortion providers, opposed “rigid legal cutoffs that ban or restrict abortion care at viability or arbitrary gestational lines.” The organization does not raise money for political campaigns, but its positions may indicate what some other groups are thinking.
In 2024, a South Dakota measure called for banning abortions during the third trimester and allowing some restrictions in the second trimester, while protecting the right to them in the first trimester. Voters rejected it.
Most national abortion-rights groups did not support it either. Since Roe was overturned, abortion rights advocates have lost four statewide votes on reproductive rights. Their side has prevailed in 14 referendums over the same period.
Melanie Folwell, executive director of Idahoans United for Women and Families, says national groups that sit out these votes are thinking narrowly.
“I would encourage them to get out of their bubbles of activism and actually begin to engage with the public on where folks are at,” she said.
FILE - Katie Mahoney, left, and Rev. Patrick Mahoney, chief strategy officer for Stanton Healthcare, an Idaho-based pregnancy center that does not provide abortions, read the text of a Supreme Court decision outside the Supreme Court, June 27, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - Residents place their signatures on a petition in support of a ballot initiative to end Missouri's near-total ban on abortion during Missourians for Constitutionals Freedom kick-off petition drive, Feb. 6, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Ed Zurga, File)
BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — A federal immigration officer fatally shot a motorist in Maine on Monday, the second time in a week that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have used deadly force and at least the ninth time since President Donald Trump began his immigration crackdown.
Immigrant rights groups identified the man who was killed as a 26-year-old native of Colombia.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a post on the social platform X that ICE was surveilling an address for a person with a final order of removal. When ICE tried to stop a vehicle driven by someone coming from that address, “The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” the department said.
U.S. Sen. Angus King previously said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against ICE agents in Biddeford, a coastal city roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Portland.
“He was in a vehicle — pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was ‘weaponized’ the vehicle and was shot by an ICE agent,” King said.
King, a Maine independent, said Mullin also told him the officers were in Biddeford to serve an arrest warrant but that it was for not for the person who was shot.
King said Mullin told him that earlier information that the man was the target of an enforcement action was incorrect. He said Mullin “got new information, and when he got it he called me to tell me."
Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said Mullin told her the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Inspector General is investigating in cooperation with the FBI.
Messages seeking comment were left for the inspector general’s office and the Maine Department of Public Safety.
The Maine attorney general’s office, which is also investigating, said initial statements suggest the motorist was trying to flee in the direction of the agent. The office said the agent who killed him has been placed on leave.
Daniel Boucher said he looked out his third-floor window after hearing a “pop, pop, pop” sound and saw a small car “turned 90 degrees to the curb” with an SUV behind it. The driver was wounded and the car started moving down the street until the SUV hit it again, Boucher said.
“His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said, getting choked up. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop’ — clearly heard him say that.”
Boucher said he saw an ICE officer bring a medical bag to where the man was lying before an ambulance and fire truck arrived. At one point, Boucher said, the agent who shot the man walked close to him.
“I was emotional and I just let him have it, and he looked at me and said, ‘He tried to run me over,’ or something to that effect," Boucher said. "I don’t remember his exact words.”
The agents involved in the shooting didn’t have body-worn cameras, King said.
“The question is: What did he do with his vehicle?” King said. “Were officers threatened? Were the threats rising to the level that justified deadly force?”
Two advocacy groups — the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! — said the man who was killed was authorized to work in the U.S.
After the shooting, his family contacted the Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, but they aren't ready to speak publicly about the shooting, said the group's executive director, Mufalo Chitam.
Mary Hayes, who lives close to where the shooting happened, said the man lived nearby with his wife and daughter.
“I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body on the ground,” Hayes told the AP as she held a piece of cardboard with “No ICE Stop ICE” written on it. “I watched a little girl crying with a little pink backpack on because she’s never going to see her father again.”
The Colombian Embassy said it is in contact with U.S. authorities and “working to formally confirm the individual’s identity and nationality.”
Sadie Dilboy said the man killed in the shooting regularly came to her laundromat and would bring his daughter, who he'd give quarters to buy candy from the vending machine.
“He was such a good person,” she said. “He was always cleaning up.”
Dozens of demonstrators critical of ICE and Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown gathered in Biddeford within hours of the shooting.
Amy Goodman, who is from nearby Wells, arrived with a sign that said “Stop Killing Us” and directed it toward police working at the scene.
“Sadly, it’s something we’re seeing a whole lot more often lately, and I’m mad about it,” said Goodman.
Police blocked access to the shooting scene, which is in a neighborhood of mostly multifamily homes, churches and businesses. Several protesters stood nearby, some holding signs condemning ICE's presence in the community and state.
On July 7, an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, of Houston, after federal agents driving unmarked vehicles pursued him while he was taking his construction crew to a job site.
The shootings come amid a Trump administration push to carry out its mass deportations agenda. During the five-day period at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people.
The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests are surging. The administration’s enforcement efforts were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.
“More than anything else, I want to know, ‘Why are you in Maine?’" Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said in a video on social media.
ICE had a significant presence in Maine earlier this year, which prompted several protests. Immigration officials later said in late January that they had ceased “enhanced operations” in Maine after hundreds of arrests.
A Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that some Maine arrests were of people “convicted of horrific crimes" including aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.”
Court records show that while some had felony convictions, others had unresolved immigration proceedings or had been arrested but never convicted of a crime.
ICE arrested 546 people in Maine between the start of Trump’s second term and March 11, 2026, the most recent data available, according to ICE arrest data provided to the University of California, Berkeley Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the AP.
About 45% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds. During the equivalent 416-day period before Trump took office, roughly 69% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds, the data show.
This story was updated to correct the spelling of Cory Poulin’s first name.
Willingham reported from Boston and Brook reported from New Orleans. Associated Press reporters Michael R. Sisak in New York, Aaron Kessler in Washington and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Blood is seen on the pavement near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Blood is seen on the pavement near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Frances Mercanti-Anthony, from Bristol, Maine, stands near the scene where blood is seen on the pavement after a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Protesters gather at a park near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Eisha Khan speaks at a rally of protesters near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A vehicle with a damaged window is transported away from the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Protesters gather near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A vehicle is transported on a flatbed near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Biddeford City Councilor Abigail Woods hugs an unidentified constituent during an impromptu protest near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
An FBI official places an evidence card where a man was reportedly killed in a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via AP)
The scene on Pool Street where a man was reportedly killed in a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via AP)
People stand near the scene as police block a road after a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in Biddeford, Maine, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Patrick Whittle)
Police block a road after a shooting in Biddeford, Maine, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Patrick Whittle)
This image taken from video provided by WMTW shows police on the scene after a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (WMTW via AP)
This image taken from video provided by WMTW shows police and FBI agents on the scene after a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (WMTW via AP)
FILE - A federal agent wears an Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge in New York, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
