Susan Collins Wants a Medal for the Cameras That Weren't Rolling When ICE Killed a Man

Politics offers a special kind of grift: taking credit for the fire after voting to gut the fire department. Watch Susan Collins do it in real time.

On July 13, an ICE agent shot and killed a young man on a residential street in Biddeford. Federal agents were on the scene of a fatal shooting in Biddeford on Monday, July 13, 2026, of a 26-year-old Colombian man killed by federal law enforcement. He had a name: Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. He had a wife and a 3-year-old kid. His wife and 3-year-old daughter, still in her Bluey character PJs and a pink backpack, had to see his body in the aftermath of the shooting. He wasn't the target. King said Mullin told him the officers were in Biddeford to serve an arrest warrant, but it was not for the person who was shot, and that earlier information that the man was the target was incorrect. The victim was a Colombian man headed to work when the shooting occurred, authorized to work in the US and issued a Social Security number.

Here is the part Collins would rather you forget. Weeks earlier, she had the chance to force cameras onto these agents and she said no. In early June, Collins opposed an amendment, offered by Democratic Senator Alex Padilla, that would have required ICE agents to wear active body cameras on duty and made footage available to Congress; it was defeated on party lines amid passage of $70 billion in new ICE funding, which Collins voted for even though it utterly lacked guardrails. The agents who killed Durán Guerrero? The ICE agents involved in the killing of Durán Guerrero were not wearing body cameras. No shit. She'd just voted against making them.

That $70 billion wasn't a bystander vote. She was the hinge. The measure, which would fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection for the next three years, passed the Senate 50 to 48. She was the deciding vote for that, and when that $70 billion passed, there was no accountability. A blank check for a paramilitary agency, no strings, from the Appropriations chair who loves to call herself fiscally responsible.

So what does the Collins operation do three weeks after a man bleeds out in the street? It books a victory lap. Collins told Semafor she'd personally secured a new commitment from ICE to require all agents to wear bodycams, saying "By the end of August, body-worn cameras will be deployed nationwide," and emphasizing that this is "by my request." By her request. The gall. As chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Collins helped negotiate a budget bill this spring that provided ICE with $20 million for additional body cameras and continued funding for deescalation training. And yet, months on, many ICE agents still do not have body cameras, and while Collins and DHS blamed the shutdown for the delay, critics have accused ICE of purposely slow-walking the issuance.

When a reporter had the nerve to ask the obvious question, she dodged. Two days after Guerrero was fatally shot, Collins, who voted earlier this year to fund ICE without requiring reforms, refused to say she regrets the vote. She referred to "money I got for body-worn cameras and training," but as the reporter pointed out, that money didn't stop agents from killing Guerrero, asking "They didn't wear cameras though, did they, Senator?" as the elevator doors closed. An elevator door is a hell of a closing argument.

Why does she keep getting away with it? Because the press clips write themselves and the money never stops. Jackson trails far behind Collins, who has been fundraising for the last six years and has about $11 million in the bank. Democrats are being badly outspent by outside groups supporting Republicans, who have already booked nearly three times as much ad time, nearly $62 million to $23 million, according to AdImpact. Her new opponent, logger and former state Senate president Troy Jackson, is betting small donors can close the gap. Jackson raised roughly $2 million from about 30,000 donors in the first 24 hours after his nomination. And the voters aren't buying her act right now. A University of New Hampshire poll conducted July 15-20 had Jackson at 49 percent to Collins' 46, with Collins underwater on favorability, 35 to 53.

Collins built a thirty-year brand on the word "concerned." Concerned is not a vote. She voted for the money, she voted against the cameras, and a father is dead with no footage to show for it. Now she wants the credit for the cameras that weren't rolling. MUCK YOU, Senator. Buy your own picket fence.