Mexican man killed by truck while fleeing ICE in Florida is identified

A Mexican national visiting the United States has been identified as the man who died while fleeing from federal immigration officials along a Florida roadway.

On the morning of July 14, Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán, 28, was killed after he and three others in a vehicle fled on foot during an encounter with federal immigration officers in a gas station parking lot near St. Augustine.

He was the third person to die during immigration enforcement operations in a week's span. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers fatally shot a Mexican man July 7 in Texas, and a Colombian man in Maine on July 13.

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During the July 14 chase, Florida Highway Patrol said a man ran across State Road 16 into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer and had fatal injuries. State officials didn't disclose Coronilla Durán’s identity. Madison Kessler, an FHP spokesperson, said the agency is investigating the traffic fatality and referred additional questions to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE.

A DHS spokesperson said agency law enforcement officers conducted an operation resulting in a Mexican national dying. Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of ICE, is investigating the death.

Mexican officials and a Florida advocacy group confirmed to USA TODAY the person who died was Coronilla Durán.

He is originally from San Luis de la Paz, a municipality in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. In emailed responses to USA TODAY, Susana Guerra Vallejo, Guanajuato’s undersecretary for human rights, said the man's wife told Mexican officials he had a visa and had spent a few days in the United States.

The U.S. State Department said it doesn't comment on specific visa cases due to record confidentiality. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, didn't respond to an email request for comment. The Mexican Foreign Affairs Ministry didn't respond to email requests for comment.

Isaret Jeffers, founder of the Florida-based farmworkers advocacy organization Colectivo Arbol, told the Associated Press that Coronilla Durán had traveled to visit friends and family in Atlanta and was going to the beach in Florida.

In a phone interview, Jeffers said Coronilla Durán was set to return July 18 to Mexico, where he and his wife live with their two children, ages 7 months and 7 years old. He owns a small restaurant, Jeffers said.

Jeffers said many Latino immigrant families have fear of stepping out of their homes because of immigration enforcement.

"They have fear of leaving and not returning to their children," she said in Spanish.

Adriana Rivera, a spokesperson for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, an advocacy group, said Coronilla Duran's death wasn't an isolated incident as ICE pursues aggressive enforcement. She pointed to the killings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, in Houston, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 25, in Biddeford, Maine. Both men were shot by ICE officers during traffic stops.

"When federal agents descend on communities and initiate encounters that spark panic and fear, people run," she said in a statement. "They run because they are afraid. They run because they know that an encounter with ICE can mean kidnapping, inhumane detention, family separation, deportation, or death. In the United States, in 2026, whether someone runs or complies with ICE, death is a very real possible outcome.”

Guerra Vallejo, the Guanajuato official, said Coronilla Durán's body hasn’t been repatriated.

On July 14, ICE reportedly halted traffic stops after Salgado Araujo and Durán Guerrero's deaths. Both killings triggered protests, even as Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has promised a quieter agency after controversial operations that resulted in the fatal shootings of American citizens by immigration officers in Minneapolis.

A day later, President Donald Trump announced he had reversed the decision. The same morning, Coronilla Durán became the third person to die during immigration enforcement actions when ICE encountered him at the Florida gas station.

On July 15, more than a hundred people protested his death along the Florida roadway where he was killed.

Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email at [email protected] or on Signal at emcuevas.01.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mexican man killed by truck while fleeing ICE in Florida is identified