Trump's immigration crackdown linked to rising number of fatal shootings

ICE officers were told to suspend most vehicle stops after two deadly shootings in a little over a week, after a Colombian driver was fatally shot in Biddeford, Maine, on July 14, 2026. The killing was the second time in a week that immigration officers used deadly force and brought the death toll tied to Trump’s immigration crackdown to at least nine.

From September 2025 to February 2026, immigration officers shot 14 people, and many of those cases involved officers firing into vehicles. In Minneapolis, Operation Metro Surge, which DHS billed as its largest immigration enforcement operation ever, produced three shootings in its first month of 2026, while at least eight other shootings injured people. The killing of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, 2026, was at least the fourth shooting fatality linked to immigration enforcement since Trump returned to the White House.

DHS policy bars officers from discharging firearms at the operator of a moving vehicle unless deadly force is otherwise justified, and the department’s guidance requires officers to weigh the danger to law enforcement and innocent bystanders before pulling the trigger. Many of the Trump-era shootings involved officers firing at or into cars, a tactic policing experts have tried for decades to limit because a wounded driver can lose control and hurt bystanders.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin defended the shootings in January, saying the officers were confronting violent agitators using vehicles as weapons against law enforcement. After the Maine shooting, Sen. Angus King said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the case involved a vehicle used as a weapon, but King questioned whether deadly force was justified. Sen. Susan Collins said the DHS Office of Inspector General was investigating along with the FBI.

The Maine agents involved did not have body cameras. Publicly available DHS use-of-force data last posted for fiscal 2023 listed five ICE firearm incidents and 18 CBP firearm incidents, but did not say how many people were injured or killed, leaving current death counts to be assembled from news reports. Type Investigations identified 18 ICE shootings that appeared to involve moving vehicles.