The Mexican man who was struck and killed while fleeing ICE agents in Florida this month was in the United States on a valid tourist visa while on vacation, one advocacy group said.
Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran, 28, had a valid tourist visa when he was killed on July 14, Orlando-based nonprofit Colectivo Árbol told the Miami Herald on Tuesday. The Department of Homeland Security has not publicly released Duran’s identity.
The father of two was killed after he allegedly tried to escape from agents in a gas station parking lot by running into the street, where he was fatally struck by a tractor-trailer. His death on July 14 was the third immigration enforcement-related death in the span of a week.
Duran, of San Luis de la Paz, a city of about 50,000 in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, had been vacationing in the U.S. for three weeks, Isaret Jeffers of Colectivo Árbol told the Herald. He had only been in Florida for three days.
“He was going to return this past Saturday. He had already bought a flight,” Jeffers told the outlet. “Now, unfortunately, if he is returning, his return is different.”
DHS has remained silent on Duran’s death. On the day he was killed, a spokesperson told the Daily Beast, “HSI are investigating an incident resulting in the death of a Mexican national. We will provide an update when available.”
There have been updates, though—just not from DHS.
The Florida Highway Patrol told the Herald that investigators were able to confirm Duran was struck while running from ICE agents. A spokesperson has not responded to the Daily Beast‘s follow-up questions.
President Donald Trump has yet to issue a public statement. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, meanwhile, announced that her government had opened an investigation into the deaths of at least 18 Mexican nationals under the Trump administration.
“We express our deepest solidarity and sincere condolences to the family of the victims. Their pain is shared by the entire nation,” Sheinbaum said on July 14, according to CNN. “No fellow citizen should be unprotected when facing possible abuse from authority, disproportionate use of force, or human rights violations.”
The incident comes after federal agents fatally shot Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian man, in front of his daughter in Biddeford, Maine, days before.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, a Mexican homebuilder, was also fatally shot by federal agents in Houston on July 7. Like Duran, neither man was the target of the operation that ultimately killed them.
ICE agents arrested a record-breaking 43,138 immigrants in June, a Guardian analysis found on Tuesday. The majority of those detained do not have a criminal history.
