Trump administration orders ICE to halt most vehicle stops after killings

ICE ordered officers to suspend most vehicle stops nationwide after two fatal shootings six days apart, a move that cuts back one of the agency’s most visible enforcement tactics. The order leaves room for exceptions when officers are executing a criminal warrant or working with partner agencies, but it pulls back sharply after deadly encounters that have intensified scrutiny of roadside immigration stops.

The most recent shooting happened in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday, July 14, 2026, when an ICE officer shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national. The Department of Homeland Security said the vehicle tried to flee and that the officer fired after fearing for public safety. The earlier killing took place in Houston about a week before the Maine shooting, adding to pressure on the agency as it faced questions over who was being stopped and why.

CBS News reported that neither man killed in Maine or Texas was the target of the enforcement operation, a detail that sharpened criticism of ICE’s vehicle-stop tactics. That distinction matters on the ground: it suggests stops meant to check one person or one vehicle can quickly widen into deadly confrontations when the wrong driver is pulled over, and it raises the stakes for communities that encounter federal agents on ordinary roads.

Maine has become the political center of the dispute. Maine Public reported that Senator Susan Collins called for a halt to non-urgent vehicle stops as questions swirled around the Biddeford shooting. Protesters also gathered outside Collins’s office after the killing, turning the episode into a live test of how far Maine’s political leaders will go in pushing back on federal immigration enforcement. Collins’s role as a Trump administration middleman has put her under added scrutiny, especially after she previously helped secure ICE funding.

The state is already tied to a broader federal campaign. DHS launched Operation Catch of the Day in Maine on January 21, 2026, describing it as an ICE enforcement effort across the state targeting criminal illegal aliens. The new vehicle-stop suspension does not end that campaign, but it does change how agents can carry it out in public, where roadside encounters can turn fast and the political cost has now become impossible to ignore.