On July 13, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a Colombian immigrant who was authorized to work in the United States. He was on his way to work in Biddeford, Maine, when an ICE agent opened fire, later claiming that Mr. Guerrero was jeopardizing “public safety” by trying to “flee the scene.” (There is no video corroboration of ICE’s version of events.) A witness told local reporters he saw officers pull Mr. Guerrero from his car, bleeding as he cried, “I tried to stop.”
The circumstances of the shooting are still being parsed out. Despite the immediate protests and calls for an investigation, it remains uncertain how the long-term reaction to Mr. Guerrero’s death will compare to the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two activists who were shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minnesota in January. Their deaths, weeks apart and captured on video and circulated on social media, became emblematic of the broken immigration system and draconian enforcement measures. Emboldened by the public outcry, Senate Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security without new accountability standards, triggering a shutdown of the agency in February.
The names of Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti echo in our national discourse, and may grow louder still as the midterm election approaches. But what about Mr. Guerrero?
Perhaps other shootings of immigrants can offer insight. Do we remember Silverio Villegas González, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who in September was shot in the neck after dropping off his children at day care in Franklin Park, Ill.? Or Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican citizen who was killed by ICE officers earlier this month while driving to a construction site in Houston, Tex.? The father of three had been living in the United States for 30 years.
The names of Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti are much more familiar. Is it because the deaths of the others weren’t caught on videos that went viral? Is it because these Latin Americans were not U.S. citizens? Could it possibly be because they were brown, not white?
After the deaths of Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti, more learned of the death of Ruben Ray Martínez. He was a U.S. citizen shot and killed by a Homeland Security agent on March 15, 2025, during a routine traffic stop, but the Department of Homeland Security did not acknowledge his death for nearly a year. Do we remember him?
The names of Mr. Martínez, Mr. Guerrero, Mr. Villegas González and Mr. Salgado Araujo may not be remembered as well as Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti. The circumstances of each death are different, and it is important to resist oversimplifying. Their lives were unique, and they are mourned by different families and different communities.
Nevertheless, the end of their lives have something in common. Even in death, our society treats them as “other.” That great gap between “us” and “them” remains. So long as the immigrant remains “other,” meaningful immigration reform will not come about.
Catholic social teaching recognizes that each of us is created in the image and likeness of God. That dignity is not contingent on race, culture, gender or immigration status. Human dignity is a core teaching of the church but is also reflected in the founding documents of the United States. We are all created equal.
Even in our polarized political discourse, our equal dignity must remain unquestioned. It is a critical, common belief we must maintain as we debate how the nation enforces immigration laws. The church, it must be said, recognizes the right of sovereign nations to defend their borders. But too often over the last 18 months, immigration enforcement has been an excuse to use force without restraint. The tragedy is not that we disagree on enforcement but that we now seem to disagree on who counts as human.
The tragedy has a sharper edge as the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. Some may understandably express a greater sense of patriotism and national pride. Yet a nationalism that dehumanizes others betrays the American values that, however aspirational, existed at the founding.
“The truth however is that we are all in the same boat and called to work together so that there will be no more walls that separate us, no longer others, but only a single ‘we,’ encompassing all of humanity,” Pope Francis wrote in his message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees in 2021.
That “we” includes “we the people,” the citizens of this country like Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti. And it includes those who arrive on our shores believing that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” “We” includes people like Mr. Martínez, Mr. Guerrero, Mr. Villegas González and Mr. Salgado Araujo and so many others whose names have not appeared in news reports.
Mr. Guerrero was one of us. We should remember his name just as we remember Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti. These shootings should prompt more scrutiny of the enforcement carried out by immigration agents. And perhaps the best way to mark the anniversary of this nation of immigrants is to recognize how they have shaped and benefited the people we are still becoming.
[Also read: “ICE killing in Maine raises the question: Why do the police shoot so many people in their cars?”]
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