WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump restored ICE traffic stops on Wednesday, overturning a suspension imposed one day earlier after immigration agents fatally shot two motorists during separate operations.
“We cannot give up one of ICE’s most important and effective crime-fighting tools, the traffic stop,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on July 15.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement had ordered officers to pause most non-urgent vehicle stops on Tuesday while officials reviewed the shootings.
An ICE officer killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during an enforcement operation in Houston, Texas, on July 9. Another agent killed Colombian national Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero during a vehicle encounter in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13.
The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that neither man was the intended target of the deportation operations.
Authorities had not publicly presented evidence showing either man posed an imminent threat.
The shootings prompted demonstrations in Houston, Boston and communities in Maine. They also renewed scrutiny of ICE’s use-of-force procedures and the limited deployment of body-worn cameras among its officers.
Read: ICE Custody Deaths Hit Decade High, Rights Groups Say
Trump’s border adviser, Tom Homan, described the suspension as a “temporary pause” rather than a permanent policy change.
He said ICE and Homeland Security officials wanted to determine whether agents had followed procedures or could have handled the encounters differently.
Trump also praised ICE personnel in his post, saying agents were performing a “great job” and remained respected across the United States.
