A 28-year-old man running from \u201can encounter\u201d with federal immigration agents at a gas station in St. Augustine, Fla., was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer on Tuesday morning, according to a state highway patrol spokesman.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear whether the man interacted with the ICE agents, or if they were pursuing him.<\/p>\n
The death happened shortly before 7 a.m. near a Wawa gas station on a busy thoroughfare. Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations were at the station at the time, according to Sgt. Dylan Bryan, the Florida Highway Patrol spokesman.<\/p>\n
The man who died had been inside a vehicle at the gas station with three other people who also fled, Sergeant Bryan said. The accident briefly snarled morning traffic along the road, about 35 miles south of Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Tuesday evening, the Department of Homeland Security shed little light on what happened, saying only that agents had conducted an operation near St. Johns County, Fla., and that an incident had resulted in the death of a Mexican national.<\/p>\n
The state highway patrol is investigating the traffic death. The man\u2019s identity has not been released.<\/p>\n
The whereabouts of the three others who had been in his vehicle were unclear on Tuesday afternoon. The vehicle was towed as part of the investigation, Sergeant Bryan said.<\/p>\n
The incident unfolded amid increased scrutiny of federal agents who have recently intensified enforcement as part of President Trump\u2019s aggressive immigration crackdown. The Trump administration has ordered a halt<\/a> to most ICE traffic stops after two killings in which agents shot into vehicles.<\/p>\n On Monday, agents shot and killed a man<\/a> in Biddeford, Maine. Agents had tried pulling over his car, which had just left a home they were monitoring, according to a Homeland Security statement. A spokesman for Senator Angus King of Maine said that Homeland Security officials told the senator that the man was not the person they were looking for.<\/p>\n Last week, an ICE agent fatally shot a Mexican immigrant, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, during a traffic stop in Houston.<\/a> Homeland Security later said that Mr. Araujo was not the operation\u2019s intended target<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Florida Immigrant Coalition, an advocacy group, said in a statement that the man\u2019s actions in St. Augustine underscored the dread that immigrant communities are feeling after the shootings in Texas and Maine.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile details remain unclear, one fact is undeniable: People are dying in the chaos and fear created by ICE operations,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n There are other cases in which immigrants were injured or killed while running from immigration agents over the past year.<\/p>\n A 25-year-old Honduran immigrant died last fall<\/a> when he ran onto a highway in Norfolk, Va., after ICE agents stopped the vehicle he was in. Months earlier, a man running from a raid at a Home Depot was fatally struck<\/a> by a vehicle on a freeway in Monrovia, Calif.<\/p>\n