By Eesha Pendharkar | Senior Reporter
“Now my daughter asks for Papa, and I don’t have the strength to tell her that Papa isn’t coming. Every night she asked for him. She always slept next to him, and now she can’t,” - Karolina Rojas Alvarez, wife of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero who was fatally shot by federal immigration agents on Monday.
Several of the candidates vying for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination debate on July 16, 2026, from left to right: Shenna Bellows, Troy Jackson, Nirav Shah, Jordan Wood, David Costello, Elizabeth Dickerson, Dan Kleban and Ashley Webb. (Pictures courtesy of the Maine Democratic Party)
By Emma Davis
All of the candidates vying for Maine’s Democratic U.S. Senate nomination called to eliminate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during their first debate Thursday night, three days after ICE shot and killed a 25-year-old in Biddeford.
Given that abolishing the agency is unlikely to happen during President Donald Trump’s administration, the candidates were pressed by moderators on what reforms they’d push for, and, again, there was largely uniformity in calling for requiring body cameras, banning masks and stripping agents of immunity.
By Eesha Pendharkar
Three days after Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was killed by federal immigration agents, his wife Karolina Rojas Alvarez remembered him as a loving and devoted father and husband who took care of their family, went to the park with his daughter every afternoon and held her till she fell asleep every night.
Speaking through tears, Rojas Alvarez said her 25-year-old husband “always dreamed big, and he had so many dreams left to fulfill.”
By Eesha Pendharkar
More than 5,500 Mainers have submitted their names to help choose Graham Platner’s replacement in the U.S. Senate race, as the Maine Democratic Party prepares for a first-of-its-kind convention to select a new nominee.
That figure includes Democrats looking to attend county caucuses this weekend to select the delegates to represent them, and those seeking to become delegates themselves, who will be responsible for voting in a replacement at the party’s July 25 convention. The assembly in Bangor will bring together 500 delegates from Maine’s 16 counties and 100 party members.
By Eesha Pendharkar and Emma Davis
Two days after federal immigration agents fatally shot 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Gov. Janet Mills visited the makeshift memorial residents built in his honor. Within moments, the governor was surrounded by local business owners and neighbors demanding to know why U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were allowed to operate so aggressively in their community — and what the state planned to do about it.
OTHER TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK
Pingree, King say man killed by ICE not the target of warrant | Kaitlyn Budion
Hundreds protest fatal ICE shooting in Biddeford | Emma Davis and Eesha Pendharkar
Immigrants, DHS agents and traffic stops: Violent outcomes repeat across the US | Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom
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