Trump urges ICE to keep traffic stops after fatal shootings

Trump said ICE should keep pulling over vehicles even after federal officials reportedly moved to suspend most traffic stops following fatal shootings in Maine and Texas, escalating a policy fight inside his immigration crackdown. “We CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump wrote Wednesday, adding that ending the practice would be “playing right into the criminal’s hands.”

The clash came after three deaths in roughly a week tied to immigration-enforcement encounters. In Maine, an ICE officer fatally shot a 26-year-old Colombian man on Monday in Biddeford, south of Maine’s largest city; in Houston, 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed during a traffic stop last week; and in Florida, a 28-year-old man died Tuesday after he ran from federal officers and was hit by a tractor-trailer. AP said at least 10 deaths have involved encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched his deportation campaign, and at least four of those deaths involved people in vehicles.

The Maine shooting quickly became a test case for how much risk ICE is willing to accept in vehicle enforcement. Collins said she asked Homeland Security leaders “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops,” while Maine’s entire congressional delegation, Collins, Angus King, Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden, called for a “comprehensive, transparent and expedited investigation” by DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari. In the same dispute, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said people in the country illegally would be “arrested and deported wherever they are,” but did not clarify whether ICE officers would be allowed to keep making traffic stops.

The Maine case also intensified questions about accountability on the street. Reports identified the victim as Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, also identified in some coverage as Johan Sebastián Guerrero, and said he left behind a 3-year-old daughter. Those reports also said the ICE agents were not wearing body cameras and that the victim was not the target of the probe, deepening criticism from Maine Democrats who are already using the shooting against Collins in a closely watched Senate race. Vigils and protests spread in Biddeford and Scarborough as local anger widened beyond the policy argument.

The immediate operational fallout is still unsettled. Trump’s push for more traffic stops collides with a reported internal pause meant to reduce the odds of another roadside shooting, and policing experts have long warned that firing into moving cars is dangerous and should almost always be avoided. With DHS, ICE and Capitol Hill sending different signals within hours of each other, officers on the ground are left to navigate a crackdown in which the rules can change before the next stop.