ICE halts most traffic-stop arrests in wake of fatal shootings
The pause comes as the Trump administration scrambles to respond to incidents in Houston and Biddeford, Maine, in which officers shot and killed immigrants.
July 14, 2026 at 1:21 p.m. EDT6 minutes ago
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A Kia sedan driven by a man shot and killed by immigration agents is seen behind police tape in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13, 2026. (Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)
By David Nakamura, Ted Hesson and Isaac Arnsdorf
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has temporarily instructed officers to refrain from making traffic-stop arrests in most cases, according to several people with knowledge of the directive, a policy shift spurred by a pair of fatal shootings involving officers who fired into vehicles over the past week.
The pause comes as the Trump administration scrambles to respond to the incidents in Houston last week and in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday in which officers shot and killed immigrants from Mexico and Colombia, respectively. Three former federal immigration officials said they were informed by current Department of Homeland Security officials of the pause — which one person said covers vehicle stops and pertains to officers within ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division.
“Guidance was sent nationwide from ICE HQ — no vehicle interactions whatsoever,” said one former official, who like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications.
Specifics of the pause were not immediately available, and DHS did not respond to questions about it.
DHS has said the officers in both Houston and Biddeford fired defensively after the drivers allegedly resisted arrest and endangered the officers and the public as they attempted to drive away. But local officials and immigrant rights groups in both cities have questioned the government’s narrative and called for independent investigations of the shootings.
The mounting questions surrounding those incidents have renewed public scrutiny of ICE’s aggressive tactics, as lawmakers, policing experts and former ICE officials have called on the agency to review its training methods and use-of-force policies.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is facing a tough reelection campaign in November, said Tuesday that she asked Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to cease “all non-urgent vehicle stops.”
“While the investigation of the Biddeford shooting is not yet complete, it raises sufficient critical questions,” Collins said in a statement.
John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE director in the Obama administration, said it made sense for the agency to halt vehicle stops given that ICE officers have been responsible for five fatal shootings while firing on vehicles since President Donald Trump took office last year.
Sandweg said ICE, under past administrations, typically made the vast majority of arrests of undocumented immigrants at prisons and jails. He said pressure on officers to ramp up arrests under Trump’s mass-deportation campaign has increased the number of vehicle stops and the dangers associated with them.
“Add it all up, and you’re asking the agents to do something that is not part of their core mission,” Sandweg said. “They’re not as well-versed and -trained compared to a city patrol officer. There’s got to be a moratorium on how to avoid this.”
https://www.washingtonpos(...)ake-fatal-shootings/
Wer die Macht hat, bewegt sich in einem Milieu, das ihm nicht widersteht, ohne dass in der Menschenmasse um ihn herum irgendetwas dazu geeignet wäre, zwischen Impuls und Handlung den kleinen Abstand zu schaffen, in dem Raum für Denken bleibt.