ICE should continue traffic stops despite recent shootings, Trump says

WASHINGTON— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will continue making arrests during vehicle stops after President Trump said Wednesday that ICE “cannot give up one of its most important and effective Crime Fighting tools.”

Following two recent fatal shootings by immigration officers, Department of Homeland Security leaders on Tuesday ordered the vehicles to be halted pending a review of incidents and training for agents.

However, the White House confirmed on Wednesday that Trump had overturned the suspension. Trump wrote on Truth Social that abandoning traffic stops amounts to “playing into the hands of criminals.”

“Radical Left Democrats want this done, but it won’t happen on my watch,” he added. “ICE, be level-headed, fair, and smart, and go back and do your very important job.”

Vehicle stops by ICE have been criticized not only by immigrant advocates but also by leading police officials and experts who say ICE ignores best practices in policing.

The move away from traffic stops comes a day after an ICE officer fatally shot a Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine, and a week after an ICE officer fatally shot another man in Houston. Both were driving at the time of the shooting, prompting a new wave of criticism over the agency’s enforcement tactics, which many condemned after the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year.

The person killed in Maine was 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Last week, 52-year-old Mexican Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed in Houston.

The Department of Homeland Security alleged that the men resisted arrest in both incidents and said officers fired their weapons defensively as the men tried to escape. Neither was the intended target of ICE officers. In both incidents, the officers involved were not wearing body cameras.

Similar scenes have played out since the Trump administration began demanding increased detentions of immigrants as it seeks to fulfill its promise of mass deportations.

In at least four fatal incidents, federal officers confronted drivers and fired their weapons after the driver drove in a threatening manner. At least 10 people have been killed in immigration operations since the beginning of the Trump administration.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) criticized the president’s statement Wednesday and called on Congress to enact ICE reforms.

He wrote of “ICE fatally shot 10 people and Trump is cheering them on.”

In the Los Angeles Police Department and most other major police departments across the country, officers are prohibited from shooting at a moving vehicle unless the driver has a gun or other weapon (separate from the vehicle) that threatens the officer’s life.

Former LAPD Chief Michel Moore said he was encouraged by Homeland Security officers preventing immigration officers from making traffic stops until the investigation was complete, because they finally acknowledged that the tactics used by their agents led to tragic and entirely preventable consequences.

Moore said it was disappointing to see Trump harshly criticize this decision.

“It’s unfortunate and it’s really not sustainable,” he said.

LAPD officers are trained to avoid putting themselves in physical danger, including avoiding standing in front of a vehicle they have stopped. Moore said such policies not only prevent unnecessary police shootings but also keep officers and the general public safe.

“If you shoot and hit the person behind the wheel, now that’s [vehicle] “It becomes an uncontrolled missile, which can increase the danger to officers and the general public,” he said. “This escalates tensions rather than de-escalating them.”

Moore said any responsible police or military agency faced with a series of deadly incidents, such as those involving immigration officers, would pause to investigate, learn from their mistakes and update policies to prevent them from happening again.

“If a police chief had that many officer-involved shootings, they would take a step back, let’s say review our policy. They wouldn’t just go ahead with it,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executives Research Forum, a leading police think tank in Washington that advises the Justice Department and major police agencies across the country.

Wexler said immigration authorities should reconsider their policies for such stops, not only because they fail but also because their boundaries are unclear, because it’s unfair to the agents.

Ryan Schwank, a former instructor at the ICE Academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, said deaths resulting from traffic stops are both operational and training errors. He is a whistleblower who resigned in February after the Trump administration announced it. cut immigration officer training.

Schwank said the decision to pause traffic stops showed agency leaders realized something was “fundamentally wrong.” ICE recruits are taught at the training academy to stay out of “crush zones,” areas between two vehicles where movement could endanger them.

A class at the ICE academy teaches recruits when and where to fire their weapons. Schwank said instructors and trainees will discuss what might be behind the target because the bullets travel.

“They know better; they’re trained not to do that,” he said of immigration agents. “We’ve now seen them do this over and over again.”

ICE’s policy is not to pursue vehicles. “That means when someone starts walking away, you shouldn’t follow them, you shouldn’t shoot them,” Schwank said.

In the past, he said, ICE arrests occurred at a slower pace: Officers would often spend several days investigating, gathering intelligence and surveilling someone so they could make the arrest in the safest way possible.

There is now pressure to arrest people quickly and aggressively, he said.

On Tuesday, Tom Homan, the White House’s top immigration official, said the stop would not affect ICE arrests because officers can still make arrests before someone gets in their vehicle or after they arrive at their destination.

Homan said the decision to pause most vehicle stops was made by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and senior ICE leaders.

A day later, mullin said Immigrants without legal status “will be arrested and deported to their location.”

He said attempts to evade arrest were dangerous and accused politicians in cities and states of so-called sanctuary policies that limit cooperation between local police and federal immigration officials.

Mullin called out Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for publishing “multilingual pamphlets and online resources advising illegal aliens on how to avoid arrest.” He also called on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to issue similar guidance and enforce shelter-in-place laws.

Immigrant advocates have advised immigrants not to open their doors unless they have a warrant signed by a judge, rather than the administrative warrants ICE typically uses.

Traffic stops are one workaround for ICE.

Schwank complained that Trump took away the agency’s opportunity to figure out how to conduct traffic stops more safely.

“Their priority is the arrest cycle, not officer safety or public safety,” he said. “They want your numbers.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.