After the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year, ICE adopted a lower profile. The agency was determined to continue its round-up of immigrants. They just wanted to do it more surreptitiously with less public drama. The fact that the Good and Pretti murders were not remotely justified caused no ICE soul searching.

President Donald Trump replaced his Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with Markwayne Mullin but the fundamental goals stayed the same. The goal has remained ramping-up mass deportations. Trump and his senior advisor Stephen Miller have placed unrelenting pressure on ICE officers to maximize their arrest numbers. ICE has been arresting roughly 2,000 people a day. The overwhelming majority of those arrested have no criminal record. These arrests are about double the numbers they were arresting earlier this year.

Because they typically do not have search warrants for people’s homes,  ICE has been relying on vehicle stops. The two recent killings by ICE agents in Texas and Maine need to be understood in this context. ICE is trying to meet the very high Trump/Miller quotas.

On July 7 in Houston, ICE officers shot and killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican construction worker and small business owner, who was stopped while he was on his way to work. He was driving his crew members to a job site. Salgado Araujo had lived in Houston for 35 years and he had no criminal record. He was in the process of trying to obtain legal status.

The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that Salgado Araujo was targeted by mistake and that ICE agents were searching for a different person. None of the agents involved were wearing body cameras at the time of Araujo’s killing.

ICE’s story about what happened in this incident is familiar. They said Salgado Araujo “attempted to ram an officer” with his truck. They said ICE shot the man in self-defense. This was the exact same story they used with Renee Good.

Three surviving passengers dispute ICE’s account, including the victim’s younger brother. They all said Salgado Araujo did not use his vehicle as a weapon. They also said no agent was positioned in front of Salgado Araujo’s car. The lawyer for two of the witnesses has been worried that ICE would pressure his clients into self-deporting.

It is impossible to know what was going through Salgado Araujo’s mind when this happened. He may have believed the armed men in unmarked vehicles who pursued him were criminals. Salgado Araujo’s family said they had discussed what to do if stopped by ICE: remain calm, sign nothing and ask for his lawyer. When armed men in unmarked vehicles approach with no identification, how is someone supposed to recognize they are law enforcement?

On July 13, ICE killed again. An ICE agent, David Brouillette, shot 26-year-old Colombian immigrant Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in the head. Durán Guerrero worked two jobs to support his wife and his 3-year-old daughter. He lived in Biddeford Maine, a small city south of Portland. He was in the United States legally and he was authorized to work. He had worked both as a food delivery driver and a late night cleaner at a veterinary clinic.

Durán Guerrero was not the intended target of ICE’s arrest warrant, as Homeland Security Secretary Mullin confirmed to Maine Senator Angus King. Brouillette fatally shot Durán Guerrero through his windshield after claiming he feared for his life. He said Durán Guerrero tried to flee. Witnesses said Durán Guerrero’s final words were “I tried to stop.” Again, ICE agents were not wearing body cameras.

Since the killing, information has come out about the shooter. He was an Army veteran who struggled with severe mental health issues. He had a history of extremely violent behavior including multiple attacks on women. His own family members told the Associated Press that he should never have been given a badge and gun. Somehow this individual made it through a vetting process.

Initially after these two murders, Mullins sent out a directive to ICE officers on the street telling them to no longer attempt to pull over suspects in cars. After a furious response from MAGA hardliners, Trump issued a retraction on his social media.

“We CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! Once we do, we are playing into the criminal’s hands,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump was afraid of looking weak to his base.

So just to clarify: ICE has acknowledged it shot two men dead. Neither man was their intended target. They hunted and racially profiled these men even though it was a case of mistaken identity. At the same time, they claim their agents are beyond prosecution. They show no interest in investigating any possibility of wrongdoing by their agents. Stephen Miller claims ICE officers have immunity no matter their crimes.

It is not clear that lawyers for the victims could make a case either criminally or civilly for the victims given the sad and racist state of the law. The Supreme Court has left it up to Congress to determine if federal officers like ICE can be held liable for constitutional violations. Maybe Congress could act to address the out-of-control nature of ICE but any action by our present do-nothing Congress seems beyond unlikely.

ICE is not normal law enforcement. ICE’s purpose is to terrorize brown-skinned immigrant communities. Their actions are more akin to a fascist gestapo than any kind of legitimate police force. They murder innocents with impunity. They also disappear people with no due process. At least 52 immigrants have died in ICE custody since the start of Trump’s second term. Immigration officials have shot and killed 10 individuals since the crackdown began.

The track record of ICE is entirely inconsistent with rule of law. By its behavior, the agency has forfeited its right to continue. It must be abolished. If the Trump regime takes further actions against our democracy before the upcoming election, it is not far-fetched to imagine that ICE could be used as a secret police for a totalitarian regime. The pieces are already in place for that.

Jonathan P. Baird lives in Wilmot.