Topline
President Donald Trump said Immigration and Customs Enforcement should continue using traffic stops, insisting “we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools,” one day after the Department of Homeland Security ordered the agency to pause vehicle stops.
Trump called traffic stops one of ICE’s “most important and effective crime fighting tools,” one day after the DHS paused the tactic in the wake of two officer-involved deadly shootings.
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
In a statement on Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump praised the federal agents working for ICE, insisting they were “doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done” and that they were “loved and respected in America.”
However, the agency is facing increased scrutiny after two deadly ICE-involved shootings in less than one week, one in Maine on Monday and one in Texas last week, both of which took place while agents were attempting to conduct vehicle stops.
On Tuesday, DHS paused using vehicle stops, a step border czar Tom Homan later told Fox News was “not a policy change, it's a temporary pause.”
But Trump seemingly contradicted the decision, which Homan said was made by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and ICE leadership, writing that ending traffic stops would be “playing right into the criminal’s hands.”
Key Background
The policy shift comes two days after an ICE officer shot and killed Johan Sebastian Guerrero, a 25-year-old from Colombia. Guerrero lived with his wife and three-year-old daughter and was authorized to work in the United States, according to the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition. His father claimed he entered the country legally, the New York Times reported citing a television interview with Colombian media, contradicting a DHS statement that referred to the victim as an “illegal alien” on Monday night. In the same statement, DHS said the victim was shot after trying to flee during a vehicle stop, with an officer “fearing for public safety” before shooting, but has not provided further details. The officers were not wearing body cameras during the incident. One witness told multiple outlets he heard the victim say “I tried to stop” after agents pulled him out of his vehicle following the shooting. Other witnesses said his 3-year-old daughter was also on hand (“She was still in her Bluey pajamas,” a witness told the Portland Press Herald). Hundreds of protesters marched on the streets in Biddeford and other cities in Maine after the shooting, local news in Maine reported, while others protested outside the offices of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. The shooting was the second ICE-involved shooting during a traffic stop in less than a week, after a 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed in Houston, Texas. On Tuesday, a 28-year-old man was struck by a truck and killed while fleeing from ICE in Florida, marking another death during an ICE operation.
Further Reading
ForbesMan Shot By ICE In Maine Was Not Operation’s Target, Senator SaysBy Alison Durkee and Zachary Folk
ForbesTexas ICE Shooting Victim Was Not The Arrest Target, Lawmaker SaysBy Siladitya Ray
ForbesMan Fleeing ICE Agents In Florida Dies After Being Hit By A TruckBy Siladitya Ray
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