White House Confirms ICE Will Continue Vehicle Stops Nationwide

The White House on July 16 confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will continue conducting vehicle stops nationwide. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that verbal guidance had been issued to all ICE field offices by the Department of Homeland Security.

She said President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security agree that the stops remain necessary for enforcement operations.

President Trump posted the same day on Truth Social that the agency must keep using traffic stops. Three deaths tied to ICE stops occurred in the past two weeks. On July 13 an officer shot and killed 26-year-old Colombian national Joan Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.

On or about July 6 an officer shot and killed 52-year-old Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. On July 14 a man died after being struck by a tractor-trailer while fleeing an ICE stop in St. Augustine, Florida.

DHS said both the Maine and Houston drivers attempted to flee or use their vehicles as weapons. Neither victim was the intended target of the operations. DHS has cited a 1,300 percent increase in assaults against officers and a 3,300 percent surge in vehicle attacks.

At least 10 people have been killed during immigration enforcement actions since the start of the Trump administration, with officers reporting that drivers used vehicles threateningly in at least four of those cases. Leavitt also reported that more than half of ICE field offices now have body cameras, with the rest expected to receive them within 60 days.