U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has told deportation officers they can once again pull over vehicles during immigration operations, roughly a week and a half after two fatal shootings prompted the agency to suspend the practice nationwide.
According to an internal agency-wide email sent July 22 and obtained by The Intercept, the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division ordered the resumption of vehicle stops alongside new guidelines governing how officers engage with vehicles. “ERO law enforcement officers are authorized to conduct vehicle stops,” the email said, adding that officers “must continue to coordinate with their immediate supervisors regarding any enforcement activities.”
The pause it reversed came after two immigrants were killed within days of each other in the second week of July. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot in Houston, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was shot in Biddeford, Maine. Both encounters involved officers engaging with vehicles. The Intercept reported that the halt was first relayed through field offices on the evening of July 13, hours after the Maine shooting, followed by an agency-wide memo the next morning.
Conflicting signals from the top
The suspension did not hold cleanly. ABC News reported that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin issued the directive to halt the stops. CBS News reported that agents were instructed to “immediately” suspend most vehicle stops, except in cases involving serious criminal targets. Border czar Tom Homan told Fox News the halt was “not a policy change” but “a temporary pause,” The Epoch Times reported, saying leadership wanted to review recent incidents and possible training gaps.
On July 15, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social directing ICE to resume the stops, according to The Intercept. The following day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the stops were continuing. Leavitt said “verbal guidance has been given to all field offices” and that the president and Mullin agreed vehicle stops are “a necessary tool.” The office of Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, had confirmed to NPR on Tuesday, July 14, two days before Leavitt’s briefing, that DHS had planned to shift the policy.
The Intercept reported that despite Trump’s public reversal, officers in at least four of ICE’s regional jurisdictions, known internally as areas of responsibility, did not restart vehicle stops in the days that followed. One official who works in a southern regional office and requested anonymity told the outlet, “The president says one thing but in reality we all follow established policy.”
What the new rules require
The July 22 guidance sets conditions that were absent from earlier practice. It requires that at least one officer involved in a stop wear “an issued and activated body worn camera.” That provision follows the disclosure, according to DHS, that officers in both fatal shootings were not wearing body cameras. The Intercept previously reported that officers at the Maine scene had devices capable of recording but could not capture video because they lacked a required cloud subscription.
The camera mandate arrives before the equipment is fully deployed. The Intercept reported that about half of ICE officers have been issued body cameras, with the remainder expected to receive them within two months, after which officers must complete training before using them in the field.
The new policy also lists training as a prerequisite, stating that officers conducting a stop “must have successfully completed an ICE-administered vehicle stop training.” For criminal arrests or while executing search warrants, the guidance permits vehicle stops only when a certified member of a Special Response Team, ICE’s equivalent of a SWAT unit, carries out the stop.
The requirements follow a rapid expansion of the agency’s workforce. The Intercept reported that from the summer of 2025 through June 30, 2026, ICE hired more than 12,000 recruits and, per reporting cited in the piece, cut more than 40 percent of its basic training curriculum. The officer who fired the shots in the Maine shooting was a new recruit hired by ICE this year, the Bangor Daily News reported.
Scrutiny over accountability
The shootings have added to a broader tally of enforcement violence this year. CNN reported there have been 10 agency-involved firearm discharge incidents in 2026, and that no criminal charges have been filed against any immigration enforcement officer in this year’s fatal traffic stop cases. CNN noted that the legal standard for charging law enforcement officers over line-of-duty shootings remains high, and that the recent stops became a central tool as agents worked toward the administration’s goal of roughly 2,000 arrests per day.
The Intercept reported that it is not yet clear whether all of ICE’s regional offices will resume vehicle stops under the new guidelines.
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