A 28-year-old man was fatally struck by a tractor-trailer Tuesday morning while fleeing what authorities described as an encounter with federal immigration agents at a gas station in St. Augustine, Florida. The incident occurred shortly before 7 a.m. near a Wawa station on a busy roadway approximately 35 miles south of Jacksonville, according to Sgt. Dylan Bryan of the Florida Highway Patrol.
Details surrounding the man’s interaction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents remain unclear. Sgt. Bryan noted that the man was inside a vehicle with three other individuals at the time agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations were present. All four reportedly fled the scene, with the man then being struck by the tractor-trailer. The status and location of the other three individuals were unknown as of Tuesday afternoon. The vehicle was towed for further investigation. The man's identity has not been released.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a brief statement confirming an operation near St. Johns County had taken place and that a Mexican national died during an incident related to that operation but provided no additional specifics.
The Florida Highway Patrol is conducting a joint investigation into the traffic fatality.
This incident comes amid heightened federal immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, which has faced increasing scrutiny following several recent deadly confrontations involving ICE agents. Federal officials have attempted to curtail certain enforcement practices, including traffic stops, after two separate incidents involving agents firing into vehicles resulted in fatalities.
On Monday, ICE agents shot and killed a man during an attempted traffic stop in Biddeford, Maine. According to a statement from Homeland Security, the car had just left a monitored residence. Officials later informed Senator Angus King of Maine that the individual killed was not the intended target of that operation. Similarly, last week in Houston, an ICE agent fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant, during a stop; DHS later clarified that Araujo was not the target of the enforcement action.
Advocacy groups, including the Florida Immigrant Coalition, have expressed concern that these incidents contribute to fear and anxiety within immigrant communities. The group highlighted the risks individuals face when attempting to evade ICE agents.
Over the past year, there have been multiple instances of immigrants suffering injury or death while fleeing immigration enforcement actions. In Norfolk, Virginia, a 25-year-old Honduran man died after running onto a highway following an ICE vehicle stop last fall. Earlier in the year, a man was killed after being struck by a vehicle while fleeing a raid near a Home Depot in Monrovia, California. Additionally, last summer, a farmworker died from a fall while escaping an ICE raid at a cannabis farm in Ventura County, California.
The St. Augustine incident is part of a broader pattern of potentially fatal risks for those pursued by federal immigration agents, raising ongoing questions about enforcement methods and community impact.