A Portuguese citizen who had been living illegally in the USA since 2009 was shot by the US Immigration Service in Maryland, on the outskirts of Baltimore, after refusing to turn off the vehicle he was in during an inspection operation.
Two people, including a Portuguese man, were hospitalized this Wednesday, after agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US immigration services, shot at a vehicle in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in the suburbs of Baltimore.
According to , one of the occupants of the vehicle, identified as Portuguese Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martinswas hit by shots from ICE agents, but is out of danger.
The agents, who were carrying out a “targeted inspection operation”, identified the driver of a van as their targetthey approached and ordered him to turn off the engineexplained an ICE spokesperson in a statement cited by the newspaper.
According to the spokesperson, Sousa-Martins, “an immigrant from Portugal who had stayed in the country beyond the visa period”, refused to comply with orders and instead “I started investing with the van against several ICE vehicles.”
“Then he drove the van directly towards officers from ICE; seemed to be tempt run over them”, reads, in bold, the statement.
“Fearing for his life and public safety, the agents fired defensively their service weapons, hitting the driver. Sousa-Martins He ended up crashing and the van was immobilized. between two buildings, injuring the passenger, who suffered a cervical strain,” details the statement.
The agency identified the passenger as Solomon Antonio Serrano-Esquivel, native of El Salvador, who was also in the USA in an illegal situation.
Also in a statement, Tricia McLaughlindeputy secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), stated that “the agents asked the driver to turn off the engine, but the man — Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins, from Portugal — refused and tried to escape“.
According to , the Portuguese resided illegally for 17 years us United States. Arrived in the US in December 2008but did not leave the country when his visa expired, in February of the following year.
Justin Mulcahy, spokesperson for the Anne Arundel County Police, confirmed the shooting at a press conference, and detailed that no police officer was involved in the incident.
Allison Pickarda Democratic Glen Burnie County councilwoman, called for “a clear and transparent process” to investigate the shooting and ensure that federal agents are working to de-escalate these clashes, and stated, in an interview, that the increase in violent episodes during migrant detentions is worrying.
“I worry that this is the new normal in communities across the country,” she said. “It’s disturbing for this communityand it’s disturbing in so many ways.”
The shooting comes in a context of growing tensions surrounding the Trump administration’s tightening of immigration policy, as federal agents, often masked and heavily armed, have resorted to law enforcement tactics considered aggressive to make arrests, notes The New York Times.
In September, two immigrant detainees died and another was seriously injured after a man opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas, leaving behind ammunition with “ANTI-ICE” written in blue. In the same month, an ICE agent shot and killed a man the zona de Chicago.
