Man Who Died Fleeing ICE Was in US Legally

A Mexican man who was struck and killed by a tractor trailer in Florida after running from federal immigration officers was vacationing in the US and had a tourist visa, according to a Mexican official and a group assisting his wife. Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran, 28, died July 14 after authorities said he darted across a busy road in St. Augustine and into the path of a truck. His death was the third in roughly a week involving encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, following fatal shootings in Texas and Maine.

• Coronilla Duran traveled from his hometown of San Luis de la Paz, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, to Atlanta to visit family and friends, according to Isaret Jeffers, founder of Colectivo Arbol, a farmworkers advocacy group. He had stayed in Georgia for three weeks before traveling to Florida's east coast to enjoy the beaches, Jeffers said Tuesday. She said he had a ticket for a flight home last Saturday, four days after he died, the Miami Herald reports.

US authorities have not publicly identified the man, but a Mexican official confirmed his name. Jeffers said Yezzika Alamilla, the man's wife, told them he had been visiting the US on a tourist visa. Coronilla Duran was one of four people in a vehicle that stopped in a gas station parking lot before 7am on the day he died. The four fled on foot during an encounter with agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations, with one darting across a busy road into the path of the semi, the Florida Highway Patrol said. It is unclear what prompted the encounter and what happened to the vehicle's other three occupants.

• Alamilla called Colectivo Arbol, which provides legal advice and assistance to farmworkers in Central Florida, the day after her husband died, Jeffers said. She was seeking help to travel from Mexico and repatriate her husband's remains. The organization bought her a plane ticket and put her up for three days, until Monday, she said. The Mexican consulate has been helping her since.

• "His wife said he was there on a tourist visa. She didn't understand what was happening," Jeffers said. "He didn't come to work; he wasn't working. He was here as a tourist." Alamilla "thinks he was very afraid, and that's why he ran away," Jeffers said.
• According to information provided by the widow, Coronilla Duran "had been in the United States for only a very short time (and) had a tourist visa," said Susana Guerra Vallejo, the undersecretary for assistance to migrants and mobility issues for the Mexican state of Guanajuato.
• Coronilla Duran's body will be transported to Mexico on a commercial flight from Orlando, Guerra Vallejo told the AP. He will be buried in his hometown of San Luis de la Paz, a farming community in Guanajuato that is about 160 miles northwest of Mexico City, she said.
• Jeffers said Coronilla Duran and his wife own a small business in San Luis de la Paz. She said they have been married for 10 years and have two children, a 7-month-old girl and a 7-year-old boy.