Flags flying at half-staff at the entrance to Biddeford signal that this small Maine city, located 15 miles south of Portland, is in mourning. On Monday, one of its residents, 26-year-old Colombian Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, died after being shot by an agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during an operation carried out as part of President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.
“It has been an absolute tragedy for the city; you can feel people here in Biddeford are mourning, and I am too. We deeply regret what happened: for the person, for the family, for the city and the community,” Biddeford Mayor Liam LaFontaine told EL PAÍS.
The community of Biddeford is mostly working class. That becomes clear once you cross the Saco River, which separates it from the city of Saco. Houses become more modest and so do the people walking the streets. It’s a different atmosphere from nearby Saco and, even more so, from the resort town Old Orchard Beach, five miles away. Only Biddeford Pool, a beachside neighborhood on the outskirts of town, is an exception. The divide dates back to the 19th century, when the first textile mills were established in the area. The factory owners lived in Saco, while the workers settled in Biddeford.
This week, the mood in this city of just over 22,000 people has been darkened by the tragedy. At the intersection of Hill and Pool streets, where Durán Guerrero lost his life, a small memorial of flowers, photographs and messages of mourning has sprung up. A similar tribute has appeared just across the river, where motorists honk their horns in support of people who gather there several times a day to protest against ICE.
‘Another notch on the president’s belt’
Anita, who prefers not to give her last name, fights back tears as she speaks about the incident. She has come to the site to leave flowers and a note reading: “God will judge the people who killed you. Rest in peace.” “It’s not normal to see people riddled with bullets in the streets; it breaks my heart. It’s shocking. What has the country become? It should be a peaceful, beautiful place,” she laments. “This is simply another notch on our new president’s belt,” she adds before heading to the Hill and Pool intersection to leave more flowers.
Anita, who appears to be in her sixties, explains that the city was built by immigrants like her grandparents, who came to work in the factories, much as many Europeans did 150 years ago. Around six decades ago, 26 flags flew at the entrance to the mills, representing the workers’ countries of origin. Biddeford is also said to have been home to the first mosque in the United States, not a formal building, but a space that served the functions of a place of worship.
In this city, migrants are still an important part of the community. “Currently 23 languages are spoken in the schools in the district, which reflects that people keep arriving here from everywhere,” says Delilah Poupore, executive director of Heart of Biddeford, an organization dedicated to revitalizing the city center. “Our school department works hard to ensure the safety of students and their families during waves of ICE raids,” she says.
Poupore, who knows the city’s history and character well, says immigrants are well integrated into the community. “People from all over the world end up living in the same neighborhoods,” she notes. Heart of Biddeford helps residents, businesses and the city work together to boost the economy and community. The organization also hosts events such as Shared Stories, which in June brought together people from different backgrounds to share a traditional family dish and talk about their culture.
Many of the migrants who settle in Biddeford do so because housing is more affordable than in neighboring communities or in Portland. The city’s relative affordability has also attracted young people and, in fact, it has the youngest population of any municipality in Maine. The textile mills that shut down in the 1990s have found a new lease on life as housing developments and commercial spaces. New apartment buildings have gone up downtown, most of them rentals. Many house several families, including the building where Durán Guerrero lived.
Biddeford already felt the impact of ICE enforcement in January, when the Trump administration launched Operation Catch of the Day in Maine, a darkly named crackdown that brought a large influx of immigration agents and led to the detention of more than 200 people over the course of just a few days.
“Many of our patients were afraid to come to our services at a vulnerable time when they should have been receiving medical care. Many were alone or their partners had been detained by ICE,” says Michaela Schwartz, a young woman who provides childbirth education to migrants.
School attendance dropped in the aftermath of the operation, and many immigrants, including some who had work authorization, stopped going to their jobs for fear of being randomly detained.
Conflicting information
Schwartz was at work when she received the news on her phone about Durán Guerrero’s death. She ran home — close to the scene — to find out what had happened. “When I learned he had a three-year-old daughter, I broke down crying; it was horrible,” she recalls. On Wednesday she left a bouquet at the memorial at the city’s entrance. The sadness remains, she says, but what she feels most strongly is anger. “I’m not even interested in hearing about the investigation or the details that will come to light. Simply put, there is no justification for that… for killing someone in cold blood,” she says.
Official information about what happened that fateful Monday morning was sparse and contradictory from the start. At first it was said Durán Guerrero was an undocumented migrant and that ICE had a removal order for him, while those who knew him insisted he was in the country legally and had a work permit. Later reports said he was not the person ICE was looking for.
The agency then followed the same pattern seen in other deaths involving its agents, including those of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January and Mexican migrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on July 7, arguing that the agent had opened fire because he felt threatened. Witnesses dispute that account. They believe Durán Guerrero had already been shot when the vehicle he was driving spun around in what the agent has described as an assault.
ICE’s presence had declined in recent months, but activity has picked up again over the past two weeks, coinciding with new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) directives aimed at increasing arrests to meet a target of 2,000 detentions a day.
“Not everyone sees immigration the same way; it’s not that in Biddeford everyone thinks exactly the same. But I think anyone can recognize that nobody should be shot just for existing,” says Poupore, from Heart of Biddeford, noting some 600 people gathered to protest and more than 1,000 attended the vigil on Monday.
Biddeford’s working-class character, forged through hardships such as the closure of its mills in the 1990s, has given the city a combative streak. “They stand up for what they believe. It’s not a city of overly refined manners or anything like that; rather, it’s a place full of life and very engaged people,” she explains.
On the sidewalks of Main Street, the city’s main artery and nerve center, anti-ICE messages are chalked on the pavement. The mark left by ICE’s presence in Biddeford will not be forgotten soon.
“In the five years I’ve been here, everything has revolved around community. It’s a small, beautiful city with very close ties,” Schwartz says. “You see this happening in the country and it’s devastating, but to see it happen right in front of you… I feel we’re going to feel the consequences for a very long time. People who witnessed it will be traumatized for the rest of their lives. It’s beautiful to see how it brings us together, but the reason it’s happening is very sad.”
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