A 28-year-old Mexican national died Tuesday morning after running from federal immigration agents directly into the path of a tractor-trailer on State Road 16 in St. Augustine, Florida. The incident marks the latest in a string of fatalities connected to Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations across the country.
Fatal Encounter During Federal Operation
The Florida Highway Patrol reported the death occurred around 6:40 a.m. during an encounter with Homeland Security Investigations and ICE agents. Four occupants of a vehicle fled when approached by federal agents. One man ran across the highway and was struck by the semi-truck. The truck driver immediately stopped and attempted to render aid, but the man died at the scene.
A veterinary nurse traveling to work witnessed the man running beside her vehicle before he entered oncoming traffic. Sara Clark Atkinson, along with another woman and an off-duty firefighter, rushed to help. Atkinson performed chest compressions while a bystander used her stethoscope to search for a pulse. Despite their efforts, the man could not be saved.
Part Of Troubling National Pattern
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed agents were conducting an operation that resulted in the death. Both HSI and the highway patrol are investigating the incident. The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office assisted with traffic control following the crash. Officials have not disclosed why federal agents initiated the encounter or the man’s specific immigration status beyond his Mexican nationality.
This death follows two other fatal ICE encounters within the previous week. On Monday, a 26-year-old Colombian national was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Biddeford, Maine. Seven days earlier, a Mexican immigrant was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston. Officials stated neither man was the target of immigration enforcement operations.
Growing Concerns Over Enforcement Tactics
Similar incidents have occurred repeatedly across the nation. Last August, a Guatemalan man died after being struck by an SUV while fleeing an immigration raid in Los Angeles. In October, a Honduran man was fatally struck on a Virginia highway while running from agents. In February, a teacher died when a man fleeing ICE crashed into her vehicle near her school.
Florida state Representative Angie Nixon called the death a tragedy resulting from an agency terrorizing communities. The Florida Immigrant Coalition stated that panic-driven responses to federal agent encounters are understandable, noting that whether someone runs or complies with ICE, death remains a possible outcome in current enforcement climate. The Department of Homeland Security faces mounting scrutiny over its operational tactics as these incidents accumulate.
Sources
CNN: Person fleeing ICE agents in Florida fatally struck by vehicle, highway patrol says | CNN
If they weren’t here ILLEGALLY they wouldn’t be running from ICE; attempting to ram ICE Agents with vehicles; and otherwise flee and elude. This individual, hit by the tractor trailer, chose to run into the path of an oncoming truck, not ICE Agents.
One simple rule of human nature that applies to 99.9% of people: if you know you’ve done nothing wrong or engaged in an illegal activity you will not run in an attempt to escape. Conversely, if you are guilty of wrong or illegal activities (and stupid enough to believe you can get away with it forever), then you’re likely to run away like a coward!!
I agree with the two comments posted ! When they start running away that tells me they are in the wrong! Let our ICE do there job! Larry Snow
All comments exactly right!!!!
Woohoo! I will be in St. Augustine Sunday after next. I feel safer already. His mom obviously did not teach him to not play in traffic. My mom did.
There’s such traffic where they came from
Correction , there’s no such thing as a traffic where they came from
I agree with the first two comments.
ICE Agents are doing their jobs the way they are trained to do it. If the illegal immigrants weren’t here in the 1st place maybe a few that make the wrong choice to run or try running over agents with their vehicles they wouldn’t get shot. They’ve all been offered money & a free plane ticket home. Maybe more of them should have taken the free ride home.
The ICE agents were doing their job. This man would still be alive had he self deported or cooperated with ICE. The men and women of ICE are doing a difficult and dangerous Job. They have been harassed, run over, they and their families threatened and put into dangerous positions by people who have no respect for the laws of this country. Organizations, Democrat politicians, people who support illegal immigrants are doing them no favors. Americans who think logically and use common sense know that many criminals entered the country through Biden’s open borders program. How men young women have been raped and murdered by illegal immigrants? ? How many families have suffer from crimes or financial losses due to crimes committed by illegal immigrants? How many Americans have been killed on America’s highways and roads by illegal immigrants who were given driver’s license by states to people who cannot read road signs or speak English at a 3rd grade level?
Immigration can be a beautiful thing, but it must be done according to the laws of this country. Immigrants must do three
things, have the ability to support themselves, assimilate into America and follow American laws.
To many illegal immigrants do not meet any of these things and become a drain on the American taxpayer.
Well said and I totally agree. I agree with the thinking (?) of an illegal. Things are rough in the country they left, they and perhaps their family with them (?) want a better life and were willing to take the chance and find hope in the U.S. They know that they cannot afford to wait and do it legally, the rist is high but, the rewards are better than in their home country. When caught, or nearly so, they will fight, run or whatever they have to do to try and NOT be returned. I can’t say that I would not do the same. All that said, does not make them legal to come here. They have to KNOW that by running, it is not going to end in their favor but, they will take the high risk and run. I feel for their heart but, as had been said so many times before, wrong does not make right and by running, you run the terrible high risk of losing your life. Inside, they do not believe it and in the fright, the flight for their life is worth the risk.l The risk, sometimes, the lose of their life, it happens, it is terrible, that is the choice they make. ME, I think I would rather be caught, return home and try it again to cross the border, at least you are alive and alive with hope. I wish their was a better way but, not that I know of, being legal, that’s the way but, they weigh the risk and may lose their life, a sorry for them and their loved ones.
I’m a 77 year old white woman and I’ve never in my life been apprehended. I have no criminal record. However, if I were approached by masked men in an unmarked vehicle trying to get at me, I would run and attempt to flee… and you would too, folks, so stop the bullshit.
Most are coming here to get a job, like you own ancestors did.. A job that white Americans do not care to do, like picking cucumber or strawberries under a blazing sun, and maybe getting pesticide sprayed on them. They come here often fleeing terrible conditions in their country. How bad would it have to get before you decide to leave your motherland?
They can read the papers, and when they see that they will be stuck in concentration camps and deported, sometimes to a country they have never known, sometimes back to a country where they will be tortured and killed and all that with no due process in contravention of the 14th Amendment, yeah, they run. And you would too. All these comments have one thing in common: They spring from a hatred of foreigners, especially dark skinned ones, carefully orchestrated by this White House propaganda painting them all as criminals. Yet Americans, born and raised here, have a higher rate of criminality than those disparaged as “illegals”.
. Research from the Cato Institute and the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that undocumented immigrants are roughly half as likely to be incarcerated as native-born U.S. citizens.
If you were in a foreign country illegally and wanted to stay there, wouldn’t you keep your nose clean?
Use common sense.
“All these comments have one thing in common: They spring from a hatred of foreigners, especially dark skinned ones, carefully orchestrated by this White House propaganda painting them all as criminals.” You follow that gem up with more liberal claptrap based on false numbers – just like so many other Trump haters! Someone that thinks the law should matter has nothing to do with hate – unlike your view!
So freaking delusional
Speak for yourself but do not project your racism onto me. Justifying criminal behavior by transferring your immorality onto law enforcement rather than the criminal is virtue signaling and nothing more.
I completely agree with Cecile. In addition, her comment was well-written, with correct spelling and punctuation. An ever-increasing rarity, it seems. Kind of a treat to read.
This has nothing to do with DHS or ICE. As a retired Police Officer of 20+ years it’s simple. The GUILTY RUN. It’s not that Law Enforcement is terrorizing anyone, it’s that Criminal Illegals have been in this Country draining resources meant for true Americans long enough and Law Enforcement is finally taking action.
This is not terror, it’s simply Law Enforcement doing their jobs that we pay them to do and Criminals attempting to avoid arrest or detention.
It’s simple, there is a far better chance you will NOT be injured or killed if you comply with Law Enforcement.
Customers sitting down to dinner, at a restaurant, are not the same as people stealing food. I don’t really care if a thief gets hit by a truck. More air for the rest of us.
Despite what R. BURKE said this is not about racism, or Trumpism, it is about enforcing immigration laws. Laws that were written and passed by Congress.