Federal immigration officers were roughly half a mile away when a man who was in the U.S. illegally crashed a car at high speed and died in Michigan last weekend, authorities said Thursday, seeking to rebut any claim that they had been in hot pursuit.

The demise of Mario Coronado Juarez has provoked outrage among friends and activists, prompting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to direct state police to investigate the Sunday morning crash in Grand Rapids.

Juarez, a Guatemalan native, was apparently not the specific target of the officers.

However, he was driving a vehicle registered to another individual who was likewise in the U.S. unlawfully and wished to return to Guatemala, the Department of Homeland Security stated in a statement.

“As officers endeavoured to conduct the stop in order to verify the driver’s identity, the driver of the vehicle fled at a high rate of speed,” DHS said.

“In the interest of public safety, ICE officers promptly discontinued the enforcement action.”

"Shortly afterwards, officers spotted smoke about half a mile from where they had attempted the stop and found that the vehicle had crashed into a tree and caught fire," DHS said.

The agency stated that officers attempted to assist Juarez and extinguish the fire prior to the arrival of Grand Rapids first responders.

Juarez, who was in his 30s, was pronounced dead at the scene.

ICE officers have followed and arrested people believed to be targets who turn out to be someone else.

But as the agency rapidly expands by hiring 12,000 officers, its long-held practices are getting more scrutiny.

In Evanston, Illinois, a U.S. citizen was discovered bloodied along the roadside on Sunday following an altercation with immigration officers who had mistaken him for a fugitive, according to police.

Homeland Security stated that the man initially declined to identify himself despite “lawful commands.”

Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand has expressed support for a state police investigation into Juarez’s death.

The city police department stated that it had no involvement on Sunday until it was summoned to the crash site.

“While we don’t know what Mario was thinking and feeling, we know that his death happened in the context of a national effort to create fear among our immigrant neighbors,” LaGrand said.

Juarez was sustaining a wife and three children through construction work in Grand Rapids, while setting aside money to build a home for them in Guatemala, where they reside, according to Gema Lowe, an immigrant rights activist.

She led a chant of Juarez’s name at a plaza outside city hall Tuesday and said he had died because of ICE’s “vicious persecution of immigrant workers.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, who represents Grand Rapids, sent ICE a detailed letter that included a request to preserve any video recorded by officers.