Rashida Tlaib says ‘ICE killed another man’ — let’s ask the tree he hit at 100mph

BS BULLETIN:

Rep. Rashida Tlaib declared that “ICE killed another man” after Mario David Coronado-Juarez died in a fiery crash in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
DHS says Coronado-Juarez fled an attempted ICE stop, officers immediately discontinued the enforcement action, and his vehicle later struck a tree while traveling at more than 100 mph.
Michigan State Police is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death, so DHS’s version remains an agency account rather than a final independent finding.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib has already reached her verdict on the death of a Guatemalan man who crashed into a tree after fleeing an attempted ICE stop.

“ICE killed another man.”

The Michigan Democrat made the accusation Thursday while identifying the man as Mario David Coronado-Juarez, a construction worker who had been sending money to his children in Guatemala.

Tlaib said ICE “pursued him in an unmarked car, causing a fatal car crash.”

“These killings have to stop,” she wrote, adding the hashtag #AbolishICE.

Then the Department of Homeland Security told a substantially different story.

On September 20, ICE officers attempted a stop of a vehicle registered to a known criminal illegal alien with multiple alcohol related driving offenses who is also wanted in Guatemala for a drunk and disorderly charge, during a targeted enforcement operation in Grand Rapids,… https://t.co/l0GJ30X477

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 24, 2026

According to DHS, ICE officers were conducting a targeted enforcement operation Sunday in Grand Rapids involving a vehicle registered to a different Guatemalan national who had multiple alcohol-related driving offenses and was wanted in Guatemala on a drunk-and-disorderly allegation.

Coronado-Juarez wasn’t even the man ICE was looking for.

Officers attempted to stop the vehicle to determine who was behind the wheel, DHS said. Instead, Coronado-Juarez took off.

“As officers attempted the stop to confirm the identity of the driver, the driver of the vehicle fled at a high rate of speed,” DHS said.

The agency says its officers then did something rather important to Tlaib’s version of events: They stopped.

“In the interest of public safety, ICE officers immediately discontinued the enforcement action,” DHS said.

A short time later, according to DHS, the officers saw smoke roughly half a mile from where they had attempted the stop. Coronado-Juarez’s vehicle had slammed into a tree and caught fire.

DHS says ICE officers attempted to extinguish the fire and render aid until local police and firefighters arrived. Coronado-Juarez was pronounced dead at the scene.

Officials estimated that his vehicle had been traveling at more than 100 mph before the crash.

DHS also says Coronado-Juarez had previously been removed from the United States by Border Patrol in 2021 and later reentered illegally.

His friends and immigration advocates have presented a very different picture of the man himself: a construction worker supporting his wife and three children in Guatemala and saving money to build them a home.

And there is still an investigation to finish.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer directed Michigan State Police to investigate the circumstances surrounding the crash. Grand Rapids police had also sought state assistance after saying investigators faced limitations in obtaining information from federal authorities.

MY QUICK TAKE

Here’s the problem with announcing the verdict before the investigation: sometimes the facts start arriving afterward.

If Michigan State Police uncovers evidence that ICE pursued Coronado-Juarez dangerously or contributed to this crash, let’s see it. That’s what investigations are for.

But if DHS’s account holds up, “ICE killed another man” is doing an extraordinary amount of work.

A police officer can create the circumstances that cause somebody to flee. That doesn’t automatically make the officer responsible for everything the fleeing driver does afterward.

And somewhere in this conversation, personal agency has to make a comeback. Driving away from law enforcement at more than 100 mph isn’t a footnote. It’s rather central to figuring out how a man ended up dead after hitting a tree.

Tlaib has already supplied her answer.

I’d rather wait for Michigan State Police to supply theirs.