PROLOGUE: HE TRIED TO DO THE RIGHT THING, FOR HIS FAMILY, IN THIS COUNTRY
JOHAN SEBASTIAN DURAN GUERRERO leaves his hometown of Bucaramanga, Colombia, when his emigre cousin offers him a job in a small town in Maine. He heads north with his wife and infant daughter, crosses the border in September 2023, and applies for asylum. He receives his work permit in May 2025, so he legally works at his two jobs: Door Dash delivery by day, veterinary-clinic cleaning by night. Do I need to say it? These are not the jobs native-born Americans are fighting for.
The New York Times quoted a lawyer at the American Association of Immigration Lawyers about Guerrero’s status:
ACT ONE: TARGETED (YEAH, RIGHT) SURVEILLANCE
The young family moves into an apartment complex in Biddeford, and they make friends with the neighbors. From the NYT again: “They were always so happy and so polite,” Don Gregoire, 69, a hairstylist, said of Mr. Guerrero and his wife. “I’d be watering my flowers in front of the house, and they would stop and say, ‘Very nice flowers.’ And their little girl would wave.”
On Monday, July 13th, the notorious Immigration Customs Enforcement troopers move on Biddeford, to conduct “targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal.”
Can’t blame ‘em for that, right?
ACT TWO: A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY
On July 7th, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop in Houston. He was a father, a husband, and a business owner who had been in the United States for thirty-five years. Only problem: It was a case of mistaken identity. They killed him anyway, for the crime of being brown while driving to work.
When ICE agents appeared in Johan Guerrero’s neighborhood in Maine, he attempted to drive off in his white KIA.
Can you blame him?
He couldn’t have known that he was not the target of the raid.
According to the NYT account: “Senator Angus King of Maine said on Monday that Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, had told the senator that the agents had been looking for someone else.”
But four bullets found a target, as bullets do.
ACT THREE: THE DRIVERLESS CAR CIRCLING THE INTERSECTION
The neighbors heard the gunshots, and raced into the street to see what had happened. They saw Guerrero dead, still behind the wheel of his car, which was rolling slowly in circles through the intersection. ICE agents pulled his inert body from the car to the ground, and applied handcuffs.
His wife fell to her knees, crying “Mi amor, mi amor!”
ACT FOUR: THE SHOOTER
News reports have identified the ICE agent who fired the four shots into the windshield of the car. He is David Brouillet, an Army veteran suffering from PTSD. In a recording I heard on NPR, Brouillet told his ex-wife that somebody ought to slit her throat.
This, after a period of abuse that ended their marriage.
ACT FIVE: ONE LAST CALL HOME
Guerrero’s family back in Columbia learned of his death in and early-morning phone call.
“His dream was to give his daughter a better future,” said Cristian Joya, a childhood friend in Bucaramanga, a mountainous city of about 600,000 people in north-central Colombia. “It was the American Dream. And now it’s no longer a dream.”
On the side of the road, what appeared to be a blood stain was still visible, flecked with rose petals from the nearby memorial.
The family of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero has launched a Go Fund Me, to pay for the repatriation of Guerrero’s body, and his burial.
As of this posting, it has raised $616,895.
That isn’t nearly enough.
“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.” — George Washington
Yeah, that George Washington.
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