WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic members of Congress demanded answers about Homeland Security's vetting and training of immigration enforcement agents after it was disclosed Thursday that the ICE officer involved in a deadly shooting this week in Maine had a history of mental health issues and violent behavior.
The Associated Press reported that David Brouillette, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine, is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood, according to several of his close relatives.
The AP reached out to congressional leaders and several key lawmakers of both parties for response.
The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said Brouillette’s history of violence and mental health issues, as well as the death in Maine, “directly call into question the supposed vetting and training ICE does of its recruits.”
“This senseless tragedy must be investigated and the officer responsible should be taken off our streets and face justice for his actions,” Thompson said in a statement to the AP.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who led a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year as Democrats tried to impose restraints on immigration enforcement operations, said the consequences of failing to put guardrails on ICE are now being measured in lives.
“The Trump administration rushed 12,000 agents onto our streets without ensuring they were fit to carry a badge and a gun — and Republicans gave this rogue agency vast power and no accountability,” Schumer said in a statement. “They empowered ICE. Now they must work with us to prevent more killings.”
The report on Brouillette’s troubling past comes as the Department of Homeland Security has been on a hiring spree, fueled by vast sums from Republicans in Congress to help carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. It raises fresh questions about the department's efforts to quickly hire, vet, train and dispatch recruits who are being sent to patrol communities across America.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, referred back to her prior statement that “an impartial investigation into the shooting in Biddeford needs to proceed, as the details surrounding this tragedy are important.”
Collins had said earlier that it is “extremely unfortunate” that the agent did not have a body-worn camera.
The senator ensured $20 million for expanded use of body-worn cameras and $2 million for deescalation training as part of the Homeland Security funding bill that Republicans approved to end the department shutdown.
“The Democratic government shutdown delayed enactment and implementation of these important safety measures,” she said.
At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was shot and killed by Brouillette on Monday while in his car near his home in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford.
“This bombshell is absolutely appalling — exactly the intolerable danger that we feared as a result of arrest quotas and inadequate training,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., in a statement to the AP.
“This agent clearly should never have had a gun — let alone one provided to him by the United States government. And now a man is dead. I’m going to continue demanding answers and accountability,” he said.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said Trump and his administration “have encouraged ICE and CBP to enter and terrorize our communities, even if those agents are untrained, improperly vetted, or lack experience,” referring to Customs and Border Protection.
“The killing of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was horrifying,” he said in a statement to the AP, “and there must be a credible, independent, and transparent investigation so that those responsible are held accountable.”
Mourners place flowers and candles in Biddeford, Maine, Wednesday, July 15 2026, near the blood-stained pavement where Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was pulled from his car on Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s parliament enacted Friday a historic revision to the 19th-century Imperial House Law by insisting only paternal-lineage men can become emperor, sparking fear that it could doom the already shrinking imperial family.
The revisions include adoption of distant male relatives to father future heirs and allowing princesses to keep their royal status after marrying commoners.
Royal watchers and experts fear the new measures could doom the 1,500-year-old hereditary institution by insisting that only men can be emperor, sparking worry about the shrinking, fast-aging imperial family.
Emperor Naruhito ’s 24-year-old daughter is hugely popular, and many Japanese want her to be his successor, but Princess Aiko is ineligible because she is a woman. Japan’s male-only succession rule means the line must move to the emperor's younger brother, then to his 19-year-old nephew Prince Hisahito. Next in line after him is the emperor's 90-year-old uncle.
In an imperial family that places a premium on male royal babies, Hisahito is the first such boy to be born in four decades. Only five of the 16 adults in the imperial family — there are no children — are men.
This matters, as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and other conservatives insist the male bloodline is “the only source of the emperor’s authority and legitimacy,” which will be the basis for the upcoming measures.
While an emperor's mother can be a commoner, as is the case with the current one, only boys born to men with royal blood can be heirs to the throne, according to the Imperial House Law.
The revision passed Friday to the antiquated law is meant to solidify the principle of that crucial bloodline by allowing the adoption of distant royal male relatives to father future heirs.
The new measures will also allow princesses to keep their royal status if they marry a commoner.
“It’s a declaration to prevent female monarchs ... and to defend the male-lineage at all costs,” said Hideya Kawanishi, a Nagoya University expert on monarchy. “They cannot say it’s male chauvinism, so they call it tradition.”
There have been eight female monarchs. The last was Empress Gosakuramachi, who ruled from 1762 to 1770.
The paternal-line male succession was stipulated for the first time in the 1890 Imperial House Law, when Japan promoted patriarchal systems. That law was largely carried over to the current 1947 version.
Friday’s revisions have led to protests from Japanese who see the government efforts as meant to eliminate Aiko from ruling and to justify discrimination against women and a patriarchal system.
“It’s very ironic that the first female prime minister herself is the leading proponent of the obsession with male-succession,” Chizuko Ueno, a prominent feminist scholar, wrote recently referring to Takaichi.
Ueno said the new measures “treat male royals as stallions and put female royals under pressure as ‘childbearing machines’ to produce male offspring.”
After Aiko’s birth, her mother Empress Masako, a Harvard-educated former diplomat and a commoner, developed a stress-induced mental condition, apparently over criticism for not producing a male heir.
Because of the male-only succession rules and the dismissal of princesses who marry commoners, the monarchy after Hisahito is “extremely unstable,” former Imperial Household Agency chief Shingo Haketa told Kyodo News recently.
Historians say the male-only system is unworkable today, as Japan more broadly faces a fast-aging, dwindling population.
It only worked in the past because concubines produced half the emperors until about 100 years ago, when the practice ended under Naruhito’s great-grandfather, Emperor Taisho.
There was a government proposal in 2005 to allow female monarchs, but it was scrapped following Hisahito’s birth.
Naruhito's two male heirs are his 60-year-old brother, Crown Prince Akishino, who is only six years younger than the emperor and has reportedly said he would be too old to serve, and Hisahito, Akishino’s 19-year-old son. Third in line is Naruhito's uncle, Prince Hitachi, who is 90.
The more controversial of the two measures allows unmarried male descendants, aged 15 or older, of distant imperial relatives — but only of paternal lineage — to be adopted into the royal family.
Fifty-one members from 11 branch families renounced their royal status in 1947, mainly to ease the postwar financial burden on the monarchy, Imperial Household Agency official Yoshimi Ogata told a recent parliamentary session.
These people are at least 36 generations removed from Naruhito because they split from a common male-line ancestor 600 years ago, Ogata said.
There is criticism of what some see as the government's extraordinary efforts to make sure that male royals are producing male emperors.
“Who wants the son of an adoptee who nobody knows to be emperor instead of Aiko?” asked Yoshinori Kobayashi, a cartoonist campaigning for Aiko’s succession.
It may also be unrealistic to ask former royals to reenter a very strict family known as “an enclave without human rights.” Royals cannot choose their jobs or homes, and must follow other serious constraints.
“I wonder if anyone would raise a hand,” 81-year-old Asahiro Kuni, whose family renounced its royal status when he was 3, told TBS television. “I imagine many people, by age 15, have some idea about their future. It’s cruel to tell them ... to change the course of their life.”
Kuni, who worked as an engineer at a major Japanese company, said he would tell his family to decline if asked by the palace. “You are asked to sacrifice your life for the happiness of the people. I can’t tell my family to choose such a difficult life.”
He also expressed support for female monarchs in interviews with other Japanese media.
Aiko, known for her engaging smile, enthusiasm and witty conversation, is a public favorite.
Five single princesses, including Aiko and her popular cousin Kako, 31, may be affected by the other main revision to the Imperial House Law, which would allow them to keep their royal status and continue serving official duties if they marry commoners, although their spouse and children wouldn't be accepted as royals.
Aiko’s elder cousin Mako renounced her royal status and moved to New York after marrying her college boyfriend, a commoner who now is a lawyer. The move was largely seen as her attempt to flee from the restrained imperial life.
Ueno calls the system inhumane and urges the princesses to follow Mako's example and leave when they can.
Hisahito, possible adoptees and their future wives will face enormous pressure to produce male offspring, Kawanishi said.
“The emperor is a symbolic figure, and I don’t see why women cannot serve in the role,” said 78-year-old Junichiro Tsujimaru, a sushi chain founder.
Yoshio Iwase, also 78, says Aiko, as the daughter of the emperor, is the legitimate successor. “I think it’s fine because there used to be female emperors in the past.”
There is worry that the government's push will upset former Emperor Akihito's legacy, which included making amends for the victims of World War II, fought in his father’s name.
Akihito, who abdicated in 2019, also tried to bring what was seen as an aloof monarchy closer to the people, an example followed by his son, Naruhito, and his family.
Akihito reportedly supports Aiko's succession. He avoided directly answering a question about the 2005 government proposal but said female royals served a major role in the monarchy and that its role was to work for the happiness of the people — a remark interpreted as his support for female monarchs.
Naruhito also said in June that he hoped discussions about the measures would reach a conclusion that “will gain understanding of the people,” a comment palace watchers said was his nuanced displeasure.
Japan on Friday also enacted a controversial new law prohibiting desecration of its national flag, a key right-wing agenda pushed by Takaichi. Opponents see it as an attempt to intimidate the public and silence criticism against her government.
FILE - Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi speaks during a news conference at the prime minister's office in Tokyo, Oct. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool, File)
FILE - Japan's Emperor Naruhito, fourth left, Empress Masako, fifth left, and other royal family members greet well-wishers from the balcony during a public appearance for New Year's celebrations at the Imperial Palace, Jan. 2, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
FILE - Japanese Emperor Naruhito, center left, Empress Masako center right, and Princess Aiko, right, listen to Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki as they visit the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims at the peace park in Nagasaki. western Japan, Sept. 12, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP, File)
FILE - Japan's Prince Hisahito, right, attends his coming-of-age rituals on his 19th birthday at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, on Sept. 6, 2025. (Japan Pool/Kyodo News via AP, File)
FILE - Japan's Princess Aiko, left, the daughter of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, arrives to mark the 110th anniversary of the death of the wife of former emperor Meiji at Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, on April 10, 2024. (Kazuhiro Nogi/Pool Photo via AP, File)
