The president of the United States supports the tactic even though the agency announced a temporary pause after fatal shootings in Texas and Maine.
Posted on July 15, 2026
Just a day after his administration announced it would temporarily suspend most ICE traffic stops following two fatal shootings, President Donald Trump is urging U.S. immigration agents to continue using that tactic.
In a social media post on Wednesday, Trump praised Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for doing a “GREAT job” and argued that traffic stops remain one of the agency's most effective tools as it carries out its mass deportation campaign.
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“We must be strong, tough and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of ICE's most important and effective crime-fighting tools: THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump wrote. “Once we do it, we will be in the hands of the criminal.”
He also urged officers to be “judicial, fair and intelligent” when they “go back and do their important work.”
The comments came a day after Trump's border czar Tom Homan said ICE was temporarily suspending most traffic stops while it reviewed the practice after two deadly shootings in a week.
“It's not a policy change. It's a temporary pause,” Homan told Fox News on Tuesday. “This will be a short-term review to ensure ICE agents are safe and doing the right thing.”
Homan said officers would continue to make arrests using other tactics while the review was underway.
The review was prompted by the shooting death Monday of Colombian citizen Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 25, during an ICE operation in Biddeford, Maine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, initially told Maine Senator Angus King that an officer fired shots after Durán Guerrero tried to use his vehicle as a weapon. Later, the department simply said publicly that Durán Guerrero had tried to flee and an officer, “fearing for public safety,” opened fire.
The officers involved were not wearing body cameras and the FBI and Maine authorities are investigating the shooting.
Six days earlier, an ICE agent in Houston, Texas, shot and killed Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, during another vehicle stop. DHS said the officer fired after Salgado Araujo “weaponized” his vehicle, but witnesses and family members have disputed that account.
The Department of Homeland Security described both men as being in the United States without documentation, but acknowledged that neither man was the intended target of the deportation operations that ended with their deaths.
Federal authorities have not released evidence to support claims that either man posed a threat that justified the use of deadly force. Advocates have charged that Trump administration officials' initial characterizations of similar incidents, including the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in January, have been misleading.
The back-to-back shootings have fueled protests in Maine, Houston and Boston, Massachusetts, while raising new questions about ICE's use of force and the agency's reliance on traffic stops. It has also raised questions about training, as the agency has sought to rapidly expand its ranks under Trump.
According to a tally by The Associated Press news agency, at least 10 people have died during federal immigration enforcement operations since Trump launched his deportation campaign after returning to office in January 2025. At least four of those deaths involved vehicles.
John Sandweg, who served as acting director of ICE under former President Barack Obama, told the AP that there have been approximately 18 shootings at traffic stops during Trump's immigration crackdown.
The trend has led Maine Sen. Susan Collins to urge Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to suspend “all non-urgent vehicle stops,” she said Tuesday.
ICE said it has increasingly relied on vehicle stops as more immigrants avoid arrest by refusing to leave their homes.
The agency has blamed immigration advocates and advised immigrants not to open their doors unless agents present an order signed by a judge instead of the administrative orders typically used by ICE.
