Border czar calls Maine ICE shooting suspect's hiring an agency vetting failure

Immigration and Customs Enforcement's vetting process has come under scrutiny amid a recent spate of fatal shootings involving ICE officers, with Tom Homan acknowledging the agency's shortcomings in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash. "No, if those were facts, I don't think he should have ever cleared vetting," Homan said. "When they hire somebody, they put them through the vetting process and look at all that stuff."

The border czar said there is an ongoing investigation into the failures, as ICE faces accusations of using excessive force in carrying out Trump's mass deportation drive. "Did the vetting process fail? Was that information not available? Did they not know? So there's a separate administrative investigation on what happened," Homan said. "But [on] the vetting process, if that was factual, he would have had an almost impossible time passing."

Homan's comments come in the wake of Bash's question about how the ICE officer David Brouillette, allegedly responsible for the death of Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national—was accused of abuse by two ex-wives. "One of his ex-wives told my colleague, Aaron Burnett, that she experienced severe domestic violence in her marriage and that he always displayed violent behavior, and even that if anything ever happened to her, he'd be the one to look at," Bash said, adding that he was ordered to relinquish firearms by a judge.

The checkered past of Brouillette, an Army veteran, includes struggles with serious mental health issues since childhood and allegations of domestic violence, according to multiple close relatives who spoke to the Associated Press. They told the AP that Brouillette should never have been entrusted with a gun and badge. The Durán Guerrero shooting was the ninth fatal encounter ICE has been involved in, raising concerns about accountability.

According to Ashley Brouillette, one of his ex-wives, he once threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child—an incident her mother, Avis Collins, also confirmed to AP. Another ex-wife said he had stalked and harassed her, and physically and verbally abused his daughter. Brouillette reportedly tackled his teenage daughter and smashed spaghetti in her hair, and during another outburst, dragged her around the house while she was crying profusely.

The circumstances surrounding the death of the 26-year-old, who was forced out of his car before he was shot to death in front of his wife and three-year-old daughter in Biddeford, Maine, have remained murky. Maine Senator Angus King said Guerrero was not the target of the operation, casting doubt on the immigration enforcement agency's targeting capabilities. Additionally, the officers involved were not wearing body cameras, making it difficult to establish the chain of events leading to the shooting.