Good morning. President Trump returned to the combative posture toward Iran that he displayed at the war’s start, threatening yesterday to attack civilian infrastructure and refusing to rule out a ground invasion. And the House voted overwhelmingly to make daylight saving time permanent. (The Senate may feel differently.) There’s more news below. But I’m going to start today with the deadly business of federal immigration enforcement.
Fatal encountersFederal agents have killed two immigrants to the United States in the last eight days, both of them in their cars. The first man to be killed, in Houston on July 7, was in the country illegally. Details in the other case, of a man killed in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday, have remained unclear. The shootings weren’t exactly uncommon. Since President Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, agents involved in the immigration crackdown have shot at least 22 people. Six have been killed. Three were U.S. citizens. Nearly all of the shootings involved officers firing at people in vehicles. We’re still piecing together the particulars of the two most recent shootings. In Maine, officials said the man was trying to flee. In Texas, they said the victim had tried to use his vehicle as a weapon. None of the agents in either incident was wearing a body camera. But The Times has been talking to witnesses and examining video footage. Here’s what we’ve learned. What happened in Biddeford It was early Monday morning in the small, working-class city on the banks of the Saco River, 20 miles south of Portland. Federal agents attempted a traffic stop on a white sedan driven by Joan Sebastian Guerrero, 25, a Colombian national who lived in Biddeford with his wife and 3-year-old daughter. According to Guerrero’s father, he was in the United States legally, though Homeland Security described him, without naming him, as an “illegal alien.” It’s not clear whether ICE was targeting Guerrero — a spokesman for Senator Angus King said the homeland security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, had told the senator the agents were looking for someone else. But they pursued Guerrero, and the stop went awry. The Times obtained several videos of their encounter. In one, there is audio of shouting and five gunshots. Another, from after the shots were fired, shows Guerrero’s car circling slowly around an intersection. After three loops, agents manage to stop the car, open the door and pull out Guerrero. His body falls to the ground. It’s unclear if he’s alive. “I heard agony,” Mary Hayes, a local resident, told The Times. She was describing Guerrero’s wife, kneeling and wailing in the street as his daughter looked on. “I heard a howl that came from your soul, that your whole life had just changed and it was never going to be the same.”
What happened in Houston The shooting in Houston also happened early in the morning, in the historically Hispanic neighborhood of Magnolia Park, near the Houston Ship Channel. Immigration agents in two unmarked vehicles there began trailing a white work van. Minutes later, the van’s driver, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, had been fatally shot in the abdomen. Our colleagues on the visual investigations team took a close look at videos of the pursuit. The footage shows the ICE agents driving after the van aggressively, seemingly without flashing emergency lights. At one point one of the pursuit vehicles appears to veer toward the van, possibly making contact, though it’s unclear if it was a ramming or an accident. If there is video of the shooting, it has not emerged yet. But a few moments later, footage from a passing motorist shows two agents bent over Salgado Araujo. He was lying on the street, his hands behind his back, his shirt soaked in blood.
A surge in arrestsThese shootings didn’t happen in a vacuum. My colleagues have reported a recent surge in immigration enforcement activity. It has happened both in large cities like Chicago and Las Vegas and in small suburbs outside Milwaukee and San Antonio. Daily immigration-related arrests doubled in the last week in June, they found, and continue to rise at a pace of about 2,000 arrests a day. The recent enforcement operations “may be more targeted, but they escalate quickly, and it is leading to violence just like before,” a Hispanic community leader in Pennsylvania told The Times. “That is the part that is scary.” Yesterday, The Times reported, the Trump administration ordered ICE officers to halt most vehicle stops while carrying out their operations. (ICE said in a statement that the agency would not discuss law enforcement tactics.) Still, death stalks their work. This also happened yesterday: A 28-year-old man ran from what the authorities called “an encounter” with federal immigration officers at a gas station in St. Augustine, Fla. He was hit by a tractor-trailer and killed.
War in Iran
On Capitol Hill
More on Politics
Data Centers
Looking to break a social media addiction? Meher Ahmad recommends a lo-fi way to do it. Lindsey Graham struck a devil’s bargain with Trump. It was a choice that gave him power, Bret Stephens writes. Deeply reported journalism needs your support. The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Become a subscriber today.
We’ve made all of these links free for you.
12— That is how many miles Dale Sanders, 91, plans to hike each day on his quest to reclaim his record as the oldest person ever to hike the whole Appalachian Trail. At 80, he became the oldest person to paddle the full length of the Mississippi.
Spain totally outclassed France in yesterday’s semifinal. The 2-0 victory was no accident, our analyst writes. The outcome of today’s semifinal between England and Argentina will likely come down to Lionel Messi and Jude Bellingham. The matchup between the nations is steeped in |
