DHS Requires Body Cameras on All ICE Arrest Teams After Two July Shootings

The Department of Homeland Security announced July 15 that at least one officer on each ICE arrest team will wear a body camera. The policy applies after two fatal shootings by ICE officers during traffic stops earlier in July 2026. A construction worker in Houston and a worker in Biddeford, Maine, were killed less than a week apart.

None of the officers involved wore body cameras at the time, despite an ICE mandate issued Feb. 19, 2025, requiring the devices during enforcement activities. Body cameras record high-definition video and audio from the officer's viewpoint.

They can activate manually or through automatic triggers and include several seconds of pre-event buffering. Video captures a 120-degree field of vision and encodes metadata such as date, time, location and camera number before upload to a secure system at the end of a shift. About half of U.S.

Immigration officers currently have body cameras, with the remainder scheduled to receive them within the next 60 days, a DHS spokesperson said. ICE began equipping officers with the devices in 2021. DHS officials attributed rollout delays to two government shutdowns, one from Jan.

31 to Feb. 3, 2026, and another from Feb. 14 to April 30, 2026. Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated in February that the program would expand nationwide as funding became available. U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said the shutdown explanation was "ludicrous" and noted that ICE had received $20 million specifically for the body camera program.

In March, former acting ICE chief Todd Lyons told Congress that roughly 3,000 of 13,000 officers were using cameras at that time. In January the agency said it was training staff to reach 22,000 officers.