Man killed by truck while fleeing ICE is identified
By: Eduardo Cuevas
USA Today
..... A Mexican national visiting the United States has been identified as the man who died while fleeing federal immigration officials along a Florida roadway.
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On the morning of July 14, [2026] Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran, 28, was killed after he and three others in a vehicle fled on foot during an encounter with federal immigration offices 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 [2026] in Texas, and a Colombian man July 13 [2026 in Maine.
..... During the July 14 [2026] case, Florida Highway Patrol said a man ran across State Road 16 into the path of an oncoming semitrailer and had fatal injuries. State officials did;t disclose Coronilla Duran's identity. Madison Kessler, an FHP spokespersons , said the agency is investigating the traffic fatality and referred additional questions to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE.
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A DHS spokesperson said 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 Duran.
..... He is originally form San Luis de la Paz in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. In emailed responses to USA Today, Susana Guera Vallejo, the state's undersecretary for human rights, said he man's wife told Mexican officials he has 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, did not respond to an email request for comment. The Mexican Foreign Affairs Ministry also did not respond to email request for comment.
..... Isaret Jeffers, founder of the Florida-based farmworkers advocacy organization Colectivo Arbol, told the Associated Press that Coronilla Duran had traveled to visit friends and family in Atlanta and was going to the beach in Florida.
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In a phone interview, Jeffers said Coronilla Duran was set to return July 18 to Mexico, where he and his wife live with their two children, ages 7 months and y years. 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 advocacy group Florida Immigrant Coalition, said Coronilla Duran's death wasn't an isolated isolated as ICE pursues aggressive enforcement. She pointed to the killings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujom 52, in Houston, and Johan Sabastian Duran Guerrero, 25, in Biddeford, Maine. Both men were shot by ICE officers during traffic stops.
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"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, where someone urns or complied with ICE, death is a very real possible outcome."
..... On July 15, [2026] more than a hundred people protested Coronilla Duran's death along he Florida roadway where he was killed.