President Trump Orders ICE to Resume Traffic Stops After Brief Pause
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resumed traffic stops after President Trump directed the agency to restore the practice, calling it one of law enforcement's most effective immigration enforcement tools.
ICE officials had paused traffic stops– one of the most common tools for immigration enforcement– after two fatal shootings involving vehicles in the last week or so that have led to protests.
In one incident, a federal immigration officer shot and killed a 26-year-old man in Biddeford, Maine as he tried to flee in a vehicle as officers conducted an operation at a home. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the officer was “fearing for public safety” and discharged his weapon.
In the other, a 52-year-old Mexican national was killed in Houston following a traffic stop, with DHS initially saying that the man had weaponized his vehicle and the officer fired in self-defense. In both cases, lawmakers in Maine and Texas said the men were not the intended targets of the enforcement operations. Investigations into both incidents remain underway.
Meanwhile, a third man died in Florida in the past week after being hit by a truck while fleeing officers.
The string of incidents led to ICE instituting the pause on traffic stops.
However, after the pause on stops was announced, President Trump wrote on social media, “We CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!”
Posting on X, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin indicated he and the president are on the same page, saying “We want our @ICEgov officers to have all options available to keep them safe while executing our mission of deporting as many illegal alien criminals from our country as possible.”
Ramping Up Arrests
According to the Wall Street Journal, the shootings left top ICE and other administration officials deeply shaken, as officers had been ramping up arrests to meet a quota of 2,000 arrests a day. The ramp up meant that officers are “meticulously staking out the homes and workplaces of immigrants they were targeting for arrest—and most often catching them as they left one of those locations by car.”
And the WSJ also noted that of the 28 identified shootings involving federal immigration officers since President Trump took office, more than half began as traffic stops. In 19 cases, DHS said the target would have weaponized their vehicle.
Use of Body Cameras
In addition, ICE officers in both shootings were not wearing body cameras, even as $20 million in funding was earmarked for the purpose and ICE promised to do so following the fatal shootings of Nicole Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota in the winter.
ICE blamed Democrats and the record-long DHS shutdown for the delay.
Critics argue the incidents highlight the need for greater transparency and accountability, particularly in the absence of body-camera footage.
"Luckily in both instances there were witnesses, independent witnesses, that observed some things and were able to share some information," said Lauren Bonds, the executive director of the nonprofit National Police Accountability Project to NPR. "But it's really hard to be able to hold ICE agents accountable in any manner if all we're getting from DHS right now is kind of vague statements about the car being used in a way that was either threatening the ICE agents or, in the case of Maine, threatening the public."
