From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

More than a hundred community members held a vigil at Philadelphia City Hall on Tuesday night to commemorate the lives of two men shot and killed by federal immigration agents in the past week.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero, 25, in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday. Less than a week before, ICE agents killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, in Houston, Texas, on July 7.

Vigil organizers arranged an altar with candles and placed flowers and burning copal, or incense, before photos of people who died in ICE custody or were killed during its operations.

Speakers and attendees condemned Guerrero and Salgado Araujo’s deaths and called for the abolishment of ICE.

Salgado Araujo “was a hard-working man who never wanted his name to be known outside of anyone in his family. … He deserved to live the quiet life he wanted,” said Lenore Ramos Juarez, community defense organizer at Juntos, who spoke in Spanish.

“How many more lives will it take for us to demand better? How many more people robbed of their choices will it take for us to fight back?” she said. “How many more shootings, kidnappings, family separations, displacements and cagings? One should be too many.”

Blanca Pacheco, co-director of New Sanctuary Movement, a faith-based immigrant rights organization, told WHYY News that ICE is “not about safety.”

“It’s just murdering us, and families are in pain and traumatized. Joan Sebastian’s daughter was present when he was murdered … and I can only imagine the pain that they feel and how they can survive something like that.”

Guerrero and Salgado Araujo were killed while driving their vehicles. On Tuesday, the Trump administration ordered ICE agents to suspend most vehicle stops.

A spokesperson from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that its Inspector General’s Office is investigating the agent, who allegedly shot Salgado Araujo in Houston, while FBI Houston is investigating the potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer.

In response to a question about the shooting death of Guerrero, the agency said its officers were not wearing body cameras.

“The process of purchasing and issuing body-worn cameras to all of our ICE field offices was interrupted by the Democrats multiple government shutdowns,” the statement reads. “Body cameras have been deployed to more than half the field offices with the remaining half to receive them in the next 60 days.

Mexico is requesting criminal charges be filed in U.S. courts over the death of Salgado Araujo and sixteen other Mexican citizens who died either during ICE operations or while in the agency’s custody.

In recent weeks, federal immigration enforcement officers have doubled daily arrest numbers, indicating that agents have been ramping up activity nationwide.

Across the region, immigration arrests have surged since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, announcing a mass deportation campaign.

Pacheco said Philadelphia City Council’s passage of the ICE Out legislation is “good,” but ICE remains active and is “surveilling people” in the city and region. Immigrant community members are “terrified to do normal things,” she said.

“Also, people are being arrested at ICE check-ins when they’re following the law that they have to follow, and we continue to [accompany] and support people as much as we can, but again, ICE is not doing anything good for our communities,” she said. “It’s destroying families. It is traumatizing people, and it’s terrorizing our communities. And nobody deserves to live like that.”