I figured this week’s column could be something fun and light, like baby’s first summer (he tried a swing set last week!). That was until a man was shot dead by federal agents in the town I worked in for years. His 3-year-old daughter was there to watch him die. 

I’ve spent a lot of time in Biddeford. It’s a lovely city (especially now that it doesn’t have the trash burner anymore), an old mill town that’s been revitalized over the last decade. It’s been a landing spot for immigrants almost since its founding. It’s a good place to raise a family, too. 

I checked my Bible last week, just in case I was misremembering what Jesus said about welcoming the stranger. In Matthew 25:34-35, Jesus says specifically “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me.'”

I know there are differences between translations of the Bible. I checked both my King James version and my New American version and neither of them had Jesus saying “I was a stranger and you shot me in the head.” 

It’s times like these that make me wish I believed in the existence of hell.

I doubt Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero and his family will get much earthly justice, not that we should stop fighting for it. I hope these ICE agents believe in hell. I hope they live the rest of their life thinking they can feel flames at their heels. 

I do not give a crap what Johan’s immigration status was. I do not care what was stamped on his paperwork. Nothing you can tell me will convince me that it matters. I’m of the crazy leftist belief that nobody should be killed in the street in front of their toddler. The fact that people even feel the need to say he wasn’t the target of the raid, or that he had a work authorization, shows just how far we’ve drifted morally. The end of a visa shouldn’t mean the beginning of an obituary. 

Even if you don’t care about immigrants or their allies, even if you’re fine with potentially undocumented people being randomly shot by masked government agents because you think they’re criminals who have it coming to them — and there are, unfortunately, a lot of Mainers who think this way — you should still be against ICE operations.

Shooting into the front seat of a moving vehicle in a town center is the sort of stupid, reckless behavior that can result in bystanders being injured, and those bystanders might be people you care about. 

Our politicians seem to think that if ICE just takes the right classes and wears the right body cameras that they’ll stop acting like violent death squads. But the whole point of ICE is terrorism and violence, inflicting it first on vulnerable immigrant communities and spiraling outward onto whoever might have the nerve to stand in their way (a mom who wrote poetry, a nurse at the VA).

Just a few months ago, Sen. Susan Collins voted to give ICE $70 billion, no strings attached. That’s more than the budget for every other federal law enforcement agency combined. Collins touts the $20 million for body cameras and says it was “extremely unfortunate” that the agent who killed Johan wasn’t wearing one. Twenty million dollars is 0.03% of $70 billion and “extremely unfortunate” is how you would describe accidentally hitting a mailbox while backing out of your driveway, not the violent slaughter of a young dad. 

ICE was established in 2003. It’s younger than my little sister. It’s younger than Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who would have been about 3 years old when the agency that would eventually murder him was formed. The same age as his baby girl when she witnessed his murder.

I was in middle school in 2003. We had immigration enforcement before 2003 and we will have immigration enforcement once we abolish ICE.

ICE is being used as a political terror squad personally controlled by the president, being sent to cities and states he personally dislikes. Where ICE goes, death follows. The fact that it’s capable of being used in this way means we should get rid of it. 

We must abolish ICE. We must bring the rogue agents to justice. And someone should probably start praying for the redemption of their souls.