A quiet Baltimore suburb was shaken Wednesday morning after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot an undocumented driver trying to evade arrest, according to ICE and local officials, resulting in a crash that left the driver and a passenger hospitalized.
Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary, said in a statement that federal officers had approached a van with two undocumented men in the unincorporated town of Glen Burnie in Anne Arundel County.
Officers asked the driver to turn off his engine, but the man, Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins, of Portugal, refused and tried to flee, she said.
“He then drove his van directly at ICE officers,” she said. The man was shot after he rammed his van into several ICE vehicles and crashed in between two buildings, injuring the passenger, Ms. McLaughlin said.
Both Mr. Sousa-Martins and the passenger were in stable condition and expected to recover, Ms. McLaughlin said, adding that no officers were severely injured.
Justin Mulcahy, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Police, confirmed the shooting in a news conference. After ICE agents approached the van, he said, “that van attempted to run agents over.” He added that after the agents opened fire, the vehicle accelerated and eventually came to rest in a wooded area nearby. He also said no police officers were involved in the incident.
Attempts to contact a representative for Mr. Sousa-Martins were unsuccessful.
The encounter, first reported by The Baltimore Banner, occurred around 11 a.m. in the Parke West neighborhood. Lt. Josh Bramble, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, said his agency had dispatched two ambulances to the area and took two people to a trauma hospital.
The shooting comes against a backdrop of rising tensions over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on migrants, as federal officers, often masked and highly armed, have used aggressive enforcement tactics to bring in detainees.
In September, two immigrant detainees were killed and another was critically injured after a man opened fire at a Dallas ICE facility and left behind ammunition that bore the phrase “ANTI-ICE” in blue writing. The same month, an ICE officer fatally shot a man in the Chicago area whom immigration agents had tried to pull over.
Mr. Sousa-Martins overstayed his visa and had been illegally residing in the United States for almost 17 years, immigration officials said. The passenger, Solomon Antonio Serrano-Esquivel, an El Salvador native, was being treated for whiplash, they said.
The agency did not provide further details as to why the men were the subjects of a targeted operation.
The Trump administration has said these operations were needed to deport dangerous criminals who are in the country illegally, keeping the public safer. But most immigrants who have been arrested in city crackdowns have no criminal record.
Allison Pickard, a Democratic county councilwoman who represents Glen Burnie, called for “a clear accountable process” to further investigate the shooting and to ensure federal officers are working to de-escalate such encounters. She said in an interview that the increase in violent episodes during the apprehensions of migrants was worrying.
“I am concerned this is the new normal with communities across the country,” she said. “It is upsetting for this community, and it is upsetting in so many ways.”
Miriam Jordan and Albert Sun contributed reporting.
Jazmine Ulloa is a national reporter covering immigration for The Times.
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