On Wednesday, July 15th, 2026, former President Donald Trump stated that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should continue conducting traffic stops. This statement came one day after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reportedly instructed federal officers across the United States to temporarily stop pulling drivers over following two fatal shootings involving ICE agents.

The directive to halt traffic stops was issued after ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on July 7th and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine earlier that week. Both men were unarmed and were not the intended targets of the operations that led to their deaths. Additionally, in both cases, the agents involved did not have body cameras to record the incidents.

Trump’s declaration did not mention the killings but emphasized the importance of traffic stops as a crime-fighting tool. In a post on Truth Social, he wrote, “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.” He added that the partial rein in “won’t happen on my watch.”

Trump also credited ICE with contributing to falling crime rates and repeated his claim that “25,000,000 people” crossed the border unchecked under President Joe Biden. He urged agents to “keep those Crime Stat Records coming.”

Fox News reported that the DHS halt included an exception for “the most egregious criminal aliens,” indicating the pause was not a blanket ban on traffic stops as Trump suggested.

Since Trump’s second term began, federal immigration officers have shot and killed 11 people, five of whom were in their vehicles at the time. The DHS has justified these shootings by claiming occupants “weaponized” their vehicles against agents, though witness videos have challenged this narrative. In the Maine incident, Durán’s wife and young daughter, who was reportedly wearing pajamas, witnessed the aftermath after he told agents he had tried to stop the car.

The president’s statement on Wednesday did not address the circumstances of the killings when countermanding the DHS order.

Sources