Trump says ICE should not give up traffic stops in wake of fatal shootings

US President Donald Trump has said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should not give up traffic stops in the wake of two fatal shootings involving the agency in Texas and Maine.

Trump said the tactic was one of the agency's "most important and effective Crime Fighting tools" - a day after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it had instructed ICE agents to halt most vehicle stops nationwide immediately.

Trump's border tsar Tom Homan had said on Tuesday it would be a temporary suspension of vehicle stops, which have been a common tactic in ICE enforcement operations under Trump.

The agency has faced scrutiny over deaths that have occurred during its activity.

Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Homan also said that agents already had extensive vehicle-stop training.

Officers have only a few moments to react during stops and "every arrest is different", he said.

The pause, Homan added, would be brief and would allow leadership to conduct a short-term review.

But Trump took to Truth Social on Wednesday morning to express his opposition to giving up traffic stops.

The president wrote: "We CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.'s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal's hands."

Referring to the wider purpose of the agency's operations, Trump added: "The men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done. CRIME IS WAY DOWN IN AMERICA, in many cases with numbers that haven't been seen in decades."

The suspension reported on Tuesday was due to apply to most circumstances except in cases involving serious criminal targets.

Asked by the BBC for clarification on what constitutes official policy now and whether Trump's post changes the reported internal memo, DHS provided a statement from Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

"Illegal aliens will be arrested and deported wherever they are," the statement said.

"We remind illegal aliens attempting to evade arrest is dangerous," it added.

On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin told the BBC he was fearful that more incidents like the recent fatal shootings would happen because of what he called "quotas" at ICE for deportations and arrests.

Durbin, a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees federal policing as well as immigration and criminal justice reform, said people at ICE "are not following the basic rules and principles when it comes to good policing".

In one of the recent incidents, an ICE agent fatally shot a 25-year-old Colombian national, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, during an immigration enforcement operation in Maine.

The DHS said the officer, "fearing for public safety", opened fire on the man when he attempted to flee the scene of the operation and after agents tried to stop his vehicle. The department did not specify the threat he posed.

The shooting took place in Biddeford, Maine, about 24km (15 miles) south of Portland.

Immigration advocates have said the man was authorised to work in the US and had a social security number.

In another incident last week, another man - a Mexican national who had been living in the US for decades - was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Houston, Texas.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was stopped while driving to work and was killed shortly afterwards.

The DHS has said the stop was initiated because officers saw "a white van with an individual who resembled the target" of an operation. It has said the officer shot in self-defence and that Araujo was not the man ICE was looking for.

Passengers in the van and the victim's family have disputed the department's account and the agency's legal watchdog has opened an investigation into the fatal shooting.

Both shootings in Maine and Texas have sparked protests.

In another incident early on Tuesday, a person fleeing from federal immigration agents in St Augustine, Florida, was struck and killed by a tractor trailer, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

At least seven people have been killed in immigration enforcement operations since January 2025, according to Reuters.

It comes after national demonstrations earlier this year following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Both US citizens, they were protesting when they were fatally shot in separate confrontations with ICE agents in January.

Additional reporting by Kwasi Asiedu, Nardine Saad and Sareen Habeshian