Mexican Tourist Killed Fleeing ICE Stop in Florida Was Days From Flying Home

Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran, 28, was killed on July 14 when he was struck by a tractor-trailer while fleeing on foot from an ICE and Homeland Security Investigations stop on State Road 16 near St. Augustine, Florida. Local outlets first named him as the victim on July 15, and his identity was confirmed in follow-up reporting the week of July 20 by the Miami Herald and Newsweek, citing his family and an Orlando-based advocacy group.

Coronilla Duran was one of four people in a vehicle that agents stopped near a gas station just before 7 a.m., according to the Florida Highway Patrol. He ran, crossed the highway, and was hit by a semi-truck. The driver stopped and tried to render aid, but Coronilla Duran died at the scene, FHP told Newsweek.

He was not the driver targeted by the stop and had no criminal record cited in any of the reporting. His wife, identified by the New Republic as Yésica Alamilla López and by the Miami Herald as Jessica Alamilla, told Spectrum News he had been in the U.S. on a valid tourist visa for only three weeks and in Florida for just two days. He had a return flight already booked for the Saturday after his death, according to Isaret Jeffers of the Orlando nonprofit Colectivo Árbol, who has been assisting the family.

"He was going to return this past Saturday. He had already bought a flight," Jeffers told the Miami Herald. "Now, unfortunately, if he is returning, his return is different."

Coronilla Duran was from San Luis de La Paz, Guanajuato, and ran a small business there with his wife. The couple had been married 10 years and had two children, ages seven and seven months, according to the Herald. Alamilla López found out about her husband's death from a television news report, not from any government notification, Jeffers said.

A witness, garbage truck driver Jose Rivera, told the Herald that Coronilla Duran slipped in the highway median, got back up, and then stumbled into oncoming traffic while looking back at the agents rather than the road. "The traffic was coming pretty quick, and he just lost his footing and didn't look where the traffic was coming," Rivera said.

DHS has offered minimal public detail. Its only statement, issued July 14 and repeated to Newsweek as recently as July 20 when the outlet asked for confirmation of his visa status, reads: "On July 14, DHS law enforcement conducted an operation near St. Johns, Florida. Florida Highway Patrol and HSI are investigating an incident resulting in the death of a Mexican national. We will provide an update when available." As of that date, DHS had still not formally named him. No charges have been filed and no independent investigation findings have been released.

This is the third death tied to an ICE or HSI encounter in roughly a week. Federal agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican small-business owner, in Houston on July 7. They shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who reportedly held a valid work permit and Social Security number, in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13. The New Republic reports there have been 11 fatal shootings by ICE agents since President Trump returned to office and made mass deportation central to his second term. Coronilla Duran's death is different from the other two: he wasn't shot. He ran into traffic during a chase he chose to begin.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has opened an investigation into the deaths of at least 18 Mexican nationals since Trump took office, some during arrests and others in detention, and says her government intends to pursue criminal charges in some cases. "No fellow citizen should be unprotected when facing possible abuse from authority, disproportionate use of force, or human rights violations," Sheinbaum said July 14, according to the Miami Herald.

Florida State Representative Angie Nixon, a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, posted on X that the death was "a direct result of an out-of-control agency terrorizing our communities," calling to abolish ICE, per Newsweek. Nobody forced Coronilla Duran to run, and the reporting shows no agent laid a hand on him. But critics have a fair point: when federal agents conduct roadside stops on people who turn out to have no removal order, no warrant, and a valid tourist visa, the enforcement net is catching people who had no reason to run except fear, and that fear cost a man his life. Supporters of the enforcement push would counter that fleeing a lawful stop is inherently dangerous no matter who initiates it, and that the driver who was pulled over, not the agents, made the fatal decision to run into an active highway.

None of the four people in the stopped vehicle has been named beyond Coronilla Duran. DHS has not said what prompted the stop, whether any occupant was found to be in the country unlawfully, or whether any of them now faces immigration proceedings. Those questions remain open as the Florida Highway Patrol and HSI continue their joint investigation.