One day after the Department of Homeland Security told Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to temporarily halt most traffic stops, President Donald Trump said ICE agents should continue making stops.
“We have to get them out,” Trump wrote on social media, referring to people in the U.S. illegally. “In order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart, and 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. The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch. I.C.E., be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job.”
The Trump administration ordered ICE agents to pause most traffic stops after deadly incidents in Maine and Texas. Agents were not wearing body cameras during those incidents.
White House border czar Tom Homan said Democrats were to blame for agents not having cameras, citing delays in funding for ICE activities.
Homan added that ICE agents undergo “extensive” training on traffic stops. He said the decision on whether to resume traffic stops would fall to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and interim ICE Director David Venturella.
“They're going to make sure that the training is sufficient,” Homan said. “Did anything go wrong? I'm confident they're going to get back to their policy of vehicle stops, but they're doing what they believe is a necessary short-term pause just to look at it and make sure everything's good.”
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Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian man living in Maine, was fatally shot by ICE agents Monday during a traffic stop. Sen. Angus King said Guerrero was not the target of the immigration operation.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, urged the Trump administration to halt ICE traffic stops.
“While the investigation of the Biddeford shooting is not yet complete, it raises sufficient critical questions that I spoke with DHS Secretary (Markwayne) Mullin last night and urged him to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops,” she said.
The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition said Guerrero was authorized to work in the U.S. and had been issued a Social Security number.
Homan said that if officers acted inappropriately, “They’ll be handled.”
Days earlier, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was fatally wounded during a traffic stop involving ICE in Houston. Like the shooting in Maine, Salgado Araujo was not the person ICE was trying to find.
RELATED STORY | Man struck and killed by truck after fleeing ICE agents in Florida
The incidents follow two fatal shootings in the Minneapolis area in January. In one of those incidents, Renee Good was fatally wounded by an ICE agent while driving a vehicle.
