PAID FOR THE BULLETS
Quick question for you. When does a budget vote become a murder charge in a closing statement? When the midterm needs blood on the chyron and the spreadsheet is optional.
The closing that wrote itself
Three months after an ICE agent fatally shot Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, a Colombia native who was not the target of a warrant, Democrat Troy Jackson closed the third Maine Senate debate on Tuesday by reading this from his notes, per the Portland Press Herald:
“Sen. Collins, the chair of appropriations, voted to give $70 billion to ICE without the reforms that Mainers deserved. Weeks later, blood was spilled in the streets of Biddeford. Sen. Collins paid for the bullets at Donald Trump’s command. Now she wants credit for not pulling the trigger.”
Bangor Daily News reports the line appeared written in advance; his campaign previewed the ICE attack hours before the debate.
DHS said at the time that Guerrero, 25, was shot July 13 when he tried to flee officers in a vehicle during an operation targeting someone else, per Fox News. A real death. Not a license to turn an appropriations vote into a homicide.
PAID FOR THE BULLETS: campaign poetry that treats every yes vote as a shell casing.
Troy Jackson in the Maine Senate chamber in 2023. In the Oct. 13, 2026 debate he closed by saying Sen. Collins paid for the bullets. Credit: ArenLeBrun, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The number that will not sit still
Jackson’s $70 billion for ICE is a figure BDN says he has repeatedly overstated. ICE got about $38 billion, BDN reports, with most of the rest going to Customs and Border Protection. Fox lays out the June package the same way:
- about $38.5 billion for ICE
- about $26 billion for CBP border security operations
- about $5 billion for general DHS funds
Add those up and you get roughly $70 billion. That is the whole package, not ICE’s share. Calling the whole pile “$70 billion to ICE” is midterm math, not appropriations English.
Collins did vote for the package. That is true. Pretending every dollar was an ICE bullet fund is not.
Sen. Susan Collins in her 2015 official photo. She voted for the June immigration package, now says ICE hired too many officers without adequate vetting and training, and wants ICE reformed rather than abolished. Credit: United States Congress, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Reform vs. abolish, and the CBP boomerang
Collins, seeking a sixth term, made one of her sharpest comments on ICE yet: “I think what happened is far too many ICE officers were hired and deployed without adequate vetting and training,” per BDN and Fox. She cited $20 million she secured for body cameras, a 17% budget increase for the Homeland Security inspector general, and more money for de-escalation training. Her case is that ICE also works child trafficking, cartels and drug smuggling, so reform it, don’t abolish it.
Jackson wants to abolish ICE and move its work to CBP. Collins countered that the agents who fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January were from CBP. Jackson conceded some may have been but blamed a culture he said ICE created, per BDN.
If your answer to a rogue culture is to move the money to a different badge, you still owe the public a plan that is not a slogan.
The red costume: gore as a substitute for arithmetic
The Democratic Socialists of America, which backed Jackson’s earlier run for governor, calls ICE “a violent and illegitimate agency,” and Jackson said in a debate last week that ICE “is not legitimate law enforcement,” per Fox. Closing on “paid for the bullets” is designed to make Susan Collins sound like a quartermaster for a killing she did not order.
Voters can hate what happened in Biddeford and still reject prosecutorial fan fiction. Inflating ICE’s share from about $38 billion to $70 billion teaches the base that receipts are optional. BDN says Jackson holds a narrow polling lead. That does not license spreadsheet malpractice.
The Maine State House in Augusta. Biddeford and ICE have become the emotional center of the Collins and Jackson Senate race. Credit: Albany NY, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The blue costume: “credit for not pulling the trigger” is still a problem
Here is the part Republicans hate reading aloud. Collins did vote for the package weeks before the shooting. She does ask for credit for body cameras, inspector general money and training after the fact. BDN notes she won training and oversight money, but not the mask bans and warrant requirements Democrats wanted. Jackson’s jab lands because “I secured reforms after the tragedy” is a hard sentence to brand as courage.
If your only answer is “abolish,” you skip the voters who want border enforcement and body cameras. If your only answer is “clout,” you skip the family of a man who was not the target. Both can be true in the same hour of debate.
For the race without the cable scream, Maine is on The Money Map at hypocrisydemocracy.net like every other state.
Both costumes
Here’s the adult version.
Guerrero should not have died that day. Collins owns a yes vote and a reform pitch. Jackson owns abolish-ICE politics and a closing line that turns a budget into a crime scene. BDN and Fox already did the dollar split, so repeating “$70 billion to ICE” after that is a choice, not confusion.
Own the boring standard: say ICE’s actual line item, say CBP’s, say which reform bills you will vote for, and stop selling homicide metaphors as fiscal analysis.
Ask your senators one question: will they publish the package table, or only the closing line that fits the jersey?
Receipts
- Bangor Daily News, Oct. 13, 2026. Closing line; $70 billion repeatedly overstated; ICE about $38 billion, most of the rest CBP; Collins vetting quote; $20 million body cameras; 17% inspector general increase; Pretti and CBP exchange; narrow polling lead; mask bans and warrant requirements.
- Portland Press Herald live updates, Oct. 13, 2026. Full closing quote read from notes, including “$70 billion to ICE.”
- Fox News, Oct. 14, 2026. Package split $38.5 billion ICE, $26 billion CBP, $5 billion DHS; DHS account of the July 13 shooting; DSA and “not legitimate law enforcement” lines; Collins on ICE’s other work.
- Reader tool: The Money Map.
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Originally published on Substack.
