ICE should keep making traffic stops despite recent shootings, Trump
says
[July 16, 2026]
By REBECCA SANTANA and PATRICK WHITTLE
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump wants Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officers to keep pulling over vehicles, signaling his
opposition Wednesday 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 Wednesday 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 Tuesday 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 Monday.
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 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.
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A portrait of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, the man killed by U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is displayed among flowers and
tributes at a makeshift memorial in Biddeford, Maine, Wednesday,
July 15 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
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.
Texas state police will investigate Houston shooting
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a staunch supporter of Trump's
immigration crackdown, said Wednesday 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 homebuilder from Mexico, was set for
Thursday 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 Tuesday.
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 U.S. 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 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.”
___
Whittle reported from Biddeford, Maine. Associated Press reporters
Jack Brook in New Orleans, Michael R. Sisak in New York, John Seewer
in Toledo, Ohio, Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Elliot
Spagat in Park City, Utah, Anna Wilder in Austin, Texas, and Darlene
Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved
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