President Donald Trump wants Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to keep pulling over vehicles, signalling his opposition Thursday to plans announced just a day earlier to suspend most traffic stops following another string of fatal shootings.
It's not clear whether ICE will quickly reverse course and resume most stops, which have been a key tool in Trump's immigration crackdown.
Ending those stops, Trump wrote, would be "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 Thursday on his social media site.
Hours after Trump made his views known, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin issued his own statement saying people illegally in the country would be "arrested and deported wherever they are". While Mullin didn't directly say whether ICE officers will be allowed to carry out traffic stops, he later said in a statement that he and Trump "are on the same page," and that they want ICE officers "to have all options available to keep them safe while executing our mission".
ICE's enforcement tactics are coming under renewed criticism after three people died during encounters with federal officers within a week. In Florida, a 28-year-old man was killed Wednesday after he was hit by a tractor trailer while running from immigration and other federal officers, authorities said.
Before that, two motorists were shot and killed by ICE officers — one in Texas last week and another in Maine on Tuesday.
Policy change for ICE traffic stops
After the Maine killing, Trump administration officials told ICE officers to suspend most vehicle stops, people familiar with the decision said Wednesday.
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 US Senator Susan Collins of Maine urged Department of Homeland Security leaders "to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops".
Two shootings in a week, she said Thursday, "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.
Homeland Security: Man killed in Maine came to US illegally
More protests are planned after hundreds gathered Wednesday to remember Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, the 25-year-old Colombian national who was shot in his car Tuesday.
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 US on September 1, 2023, through the southern border, DHS said Thursday. Advocacy groups said that when he was killed, he was authorised to work in the US.
Senator Angus King, I-Maine, said the Homeland Security secretary told him on Tuesday 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 Thursday, DHS said Guerrero was released into the US 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.
Texas state police will investigate Houston shooting
Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a staunch supporter of Trump's immigration crackdown, said Thursday that the state's top law enforcement unit would investigate the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.
DHS' account of the July 7 shooting is disputed by three other men who were riding in a van with Salgado Araujo at the time. A public viewing for Salgado Araujo, a home-builder from Mexico, was set for Friday in Houston.
More than a week after the shooting, new court records show the FBI is investigating if drugs were found in the van, according to a search warrant application signed by a federal judge Wednesday.
FBI special agent David McNeilly stated in an affidavit that he observed four plastic bags of a white substance appearing to be meth inside the van. DHS has not stated that suspected drugs were the reason why ICE officers engaged in the traffic stop. The FBI referred questions about the search warrant to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ACLU of Texas, which is providing legal representation for Salgado Araujo's family, said the Trump administration "lacks credibility" to investigate itself.
Maine shooting puts a spotlight on ICE
Outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the shooting of Durán Guerrero in Maine a targeted killing "at the hands of the US government".
In Thursday'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 criticised ICE before, said Thursday that the agency needs changes "before more families are robbed of a loved one".
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