A 28-year-old man died Tuesday morning after running into traffic during an encounter with federal immigration officials in St Augustine, Florida, marking the third death tied to immigration enforcement in as many days.
Homeland Security Investigations agents were conducting an operation in a convenience store parking lot when four men in a vehicle attempted to flee. One of the men bolted into a busy roadway and was struck by a semi truck in the right lane. He sustained fatal injuries at the scene.
"The tractor trailer immediately stopped and attempted to render aid to the victim," said Master Sgt Dylan Bryan, a Florida highway patrol spokesperson. The man's identity has not been released.
It remains unclear whether the deceased was the intended target of an arrest operation or whether the other three men involved in the encounter were apprehended. Border patrol vehicles were present at the scene, according to a homeland security source, though the exact scope of the operation has not been disclosed.
The incident occurs as federal immigration enforcement faces intensifying scrutiny over deadly encounters. On Monday morning, an ICE official shot and killed 26-year-old Colombian immigrant Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero during an arrest attempt. Days earlier, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was fatally shot by ICE officials in Texas as they attempted to apprehend him and his coworkers en route to work.
The Florida Highway Patrol, along with the St Johns County Sheriff's Office and Customs and Border Protection, deferred all inquiries to ICE. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to requests for comment regarding the incident or the broader string of enforcement-related deaths.
Author James Rodriguez: "Three deaths in one week tied to immigration enforcement is a staggering collision between aggressive operations and tragic outcomes that demand immediate transparency from federal agencies."
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