PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The person Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents targeted in Maine last month when an officer shot and killed a motorist was a roommate who was not subject to a final removal order, a Democratic congresswoman from the state said.
Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in a car near his Biddeford home on July 13. Rep. Chellie Pingree said during a hearing in Maine on Monday that ICE's intended target was Durán Guerrero's roommate, who was the owner of the car Durán Guerrero was driving.
Pingree called the discovery a “shocking revelation in clear contradiction to what ICE" and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have said about the shooting. She added that it was previously established Durán Guerrero was not the intended target and also did not have a final order of removal, but did have a pending asylum case and a valid work permit.
“Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero should be alive today,” Pingree said during the hearing. “More than a month later, there are still so many basic questions that remain unanswered by ICE and the Trump administration.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement late Monday that it stands by its prior assessment of the shooting. ICE was conducting “targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal,” a spokesperson for the agency said.
“We are not going to disclose law enforcement sensitive intelligence and methods. Nowhere did we state that Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero or his roommate were the target of the operation,” the spokesperson said.
The shooting of Durán Guerrero remains under investigation by the Office of the Maine Attorney General. Pingree was among several Democratic House members who spoke at a hearing in Biddeford on Monday to discuss ICE's use of deadly force in the state. The Department of Homeland Security said at the time of the shooting that Durán Guerrero attempted to flee the scene and the ICE officer discharged his weapon because he feared for public safety.
Pingree and other Democratic Congress members have also called for answers from Homeland Security about its training and vetting of agents after it was disclosed that the ICE officer involved in the shooting had a history of violent behavior and mental health issues. The shooting also appeared to lead to a policy change in which ICE would suspend most vehicle stops, but President Donald Trump swiftly expressed opposition to that change.
FILE - A woman visits a makeshift memorial for Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in Biddeford, Maine, July 15, 2026, (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
FILE - A poster of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a man killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is displayed among flowers and tributes at a makeshift memorial in Biddeford, Maine, July 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota's attorney general sued the governor of Texas on Tuesday, seeking to compel the extradition of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent charged with wounding a man and then lying to justify the shooting during the agency's crackdown in Minneapolis.
Attorney General Keith Ellison is asking a federal judge to bar the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro, and to order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant so that Minnesota officers can take custody.
Minnesota officials have clashed with the federal government over who has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct. Ellison is a Democrat and Abbott is a Republican ally of President Donald Trump.
Castro was arrested in Texas in May on Minnesota charges of assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 wounding of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Castro, 52, is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg with a bullet that lodged in a child’s bedroom wall. Prosecutors say Castro then falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.
Ellison told a news conference that unless he's extradited, Castro could be released from jail next week -- 90 days since he was detained -- under Texas law. And if he's freed, Castro could slip into Mexico from the border town where he's being held, Ellison said. The lawsuit said Castro has been making calls from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released.”
“Christian Castro has been charged with breaking the law in Minnesota,” Ellison said. “He must face justice in Minnesota. Gov. Abbott should have granted Gov. Walz’s extradition request long ago and is required to do so now.”
It was not immediately known if Castro had a lawyer who could speak for him. Online court records in Minnesota and county jail records in Texas did not list a defense attorney.
Abbott's office said in a statement that it would not comment on “pending extradition matters.”
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the legal action to compel Castro’s extradition “should be a completely unnecessary lawsuit.” She said jail officials and prosecutors in Texas have been “very cooperative,” and that an extradition “is not supposed to be controversial.”
The office of Cameron County Sheriff Manny Trevino declined to comment Tuesday on the case.
Authorities say Sosa-Celis was shot after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., according to Minnesota officials.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether agents lied about what happened.
Regardless, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has called Moriarty's prosecution of Castro “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt,” saying only federal authorities have jurisdiction in the case.
The federal government took a similar stance following the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during the Minneapolis enforcement surge. Moriarty sued the Trump administration to gain access to evidence in those cases before federal prosecutors turned it over last month.
The extradition lawsuit Ellison filed in U.S. District Court in Texas cites a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that compliance with the Constitution’s extradition clause is mandatory, affording no discretion to the governor or courts of a state where a defendant is being held.
Moriarty said that since Castro’s arrest, Texas has extradited three unrelated criminal defendants without incident to Minnesota.
“Gov. Abbott has received communication with us on an ongoing basis, including recently,” Ellison said. “We have to take the position that they are refusing to honor the extradition request.”
Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. AP journalist Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, right, speaks during a news conference as Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty looks on, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
FILE - Tear gas surrounds federal law enforcement officers as they leave a scene after a shooting on Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
