President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should continue making vehicle stops, pushing back against a plan announced only a day earlier to pause most traffic stops after another series of deadly encounters involving federal officers.
Whether ICE will immediately change direction and restore most of those stops remains uncertain. The tactic has been one of the central enforcement tools in Trump’s broader immigration crackdown.
Trump argued that abandoning the practice would amount to “playing right into the criminal’s hands.”
“We CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump wrote Wednesday in a post on his social media platform.
Later Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin released a statement saying immigrants living in the country illegally would be “arrested and deported wherever they are.” Mullin did not explicitly say whether ICE agents would continue conducting traffic stops, but he later added that he and Trump “are on the same page” and want officers to have “all options available to keep them safe while executing our mission.”
The debate over ICE traffic stops comes as the agency’s enforcement methods face fresh scrutiny following three deaths during encounters with federal officers in the span of a week. In Florida, officials said a 28-year-old man died Tuesday after being struck by a tractor-trailer while fleeing immigration agents and other federal authorities.
The Florida death followed two fatal shootings involving ICE officers: one motorist was killed in Texas last week, and another was shot and killed Monday in Maine.
Policy change for ICE traffic stops
After the shooting in Maine, Trump administration officials instructed ICE personnel to halt most vehicle stops, according to people familiar with the decision who spoke Tuesday.
Since the immigration crackdown began, federal officers confronting drivers have opened fire several times, saying the drivers’ vehicles had posed a danger. Policing experts have long said that shooting into moving cars presents a danger of its own and should almost always be avoided.
There have been at least 10 deaths involving encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched his deportation campaign. At least four of them involved people in vehicles, a trend so troubling that Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine urged Department of Homeland Security leaders “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops.”
Two shootings in a week, she said Wednesday, “raise very serious questions” and warrant a halt in that approach for the time being.
ICE has been under pressure to beef up arrest and deportation numbers. It says people being sought are increasingly staying in their homes, and it often blames immigration advocates who advise immigrants to stay in homes unless ICE produces a warrant signed by an independent judge.
ICE officers say that means they’re forced to find other ways to make arrests.
DHS says the man killed in Maine came to the US illegally
More protests are planned after hundreds gathered Tuesday to remember Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, the 25-year-old Colombian national who was shot in his car Monday.
Karolina Rojas, his partner and the mother of their young daughter, shared a photo on Instagram of the three hugging and smiling.
“I love you, my darling, my life. I love you. I have no words for this pain. You were my everything. Please watch over me. Help me find the strength to carry on. Stay with me always. Don’t leave me alone. I’m begging you, my love,” she wrote.
Durán Guerrero illegally entered the U.S. on Sept. 1, 2023, through the southern border, DHS said Wednesday. Advocacy groups said that when he was killed, he was authorized to work in the U.S.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said the Homeland Security secretary told him on Monday that ICE officers were in Biddeford to serve an arrest warrant but that it wasn’t for the person who was shot.
When ICE tried to stop a vehicle driven by someone who came from a home under surveillance, the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” the department said.
In its statement Wednesday, DHS said Guerrero was released into the U.S. after crossing the border.
The department didn’t answer questions about the agent who shot him.
Photos showed bullet holes in Durán Guerrero’s car windshield, but the officers involved didn’t have body cameras, leaving many questions.
Maine shooting puts a spotlight on ICE
Outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the shooting of Durán Guerrero a targeted killing “at the hands of the U.S. government.”
In Wednesday’s social media post, Trump told ICE to be “judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job.”
Border czar Tom Homan told reporters that the investigation needs to play out and that officers will be held accountable if they are found to have acted inappropriately or illegally.
Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, said ICE should be scrapped as a federal agency if it can’t be fixed.
Mills, who has criticized ICE before, said Wednesday that the agency needs changes “before more families are robbed of a loved one.”
