A 28-year-old man was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer after fleeing an encounter with federal immigration officers in St. Augustine, Florida, on Tuesday morning, authorities said, in the latest fatal incident linked to U.S. immigration enforcement operations.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, the man was one of four people travelling in a vehicle that stopped at a gas station and convenience store shortly before 7 a.m. Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) were at the location when an encounter occurred. The four occupants then fled on foot, with the 28-year-old running across the busy State Road 16, where he was struck by an oncoming tractor-trailer.
Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Dylan Bryan said the truck driver immediately stopped and attempted to render aid, but the man died at the scene. Authorities have not released his identity, nationality or immigration status, and it remains unclear what prompted the initial encounter with federal agents. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while no information was released about the three other occupants of the vehicle.
The death is the third in about a week involving encounters with ICE officers, following separate fatal shootings in Texas and Maine. It is also at least the 10th death linked to immigration enforcement operations since President Donald Trump launched an expanded mass deportation campaign last year.
The incident has renewed scrutiny of ICE enforcement tactics. Earlier cases include a Guatemalan man who was fatally struck by an SUV while fleeing officers outside a Home Depot in Southern California last summer, and a Honduran man who died after being hit by a pickup truck while attempting to escape authorities during a targeted traffic stop in Virginia in October.
The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the fatal crash, while questions remain over the circumstances that led to the immigration enforcement operation and whether the deceased man was the intended target of the federal agents
