ICE Told To Suspend Traffic Stops Following Latest Fatal Shootings

By Andy Kalmowitz
ICE agents pull a woman from a car before detaining her on January 13, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been told to largely suspend vehicle stops until further notice. This is according to a source familiar with the guidance who spoke with CNN, and it marks a major reversal in recent tactics. The decision comes following two deadly encounters where ICE officers appear to have shot people in their cars over just the last week.

This guidance applies to agents who fall under Enforcement and Removal Operations, the branch inside of ICE that you've all seen on the news. They're the guys tasked with ripping people out of their communities, arresting and deporting them. Their goal is going after undocumented immigrants, but many folks who are documented are getting caught in the literal crosshairs. Now, officers are being directed to use other methods for general immigration enforcement, according to CNN. That makes up a large share of their work, and they're also supposed to coordinate with partner agencies when executing a criminal warrant on a person in a vehicle — something they probably should have been doing from the get-go.

There's no word on where the decision came from, but one thing is for sure, it didn't come from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who, despite being one of the most powerful people in the entire country, pretended he hadn't heard about the situation in Maine.

The shootings

ICE Protest in Maine Ryan Murphy/Getty Images

Both fatal shootings that took place over the last week happened during vehicle stops, something ICE has frequently leaned on to ramp up immigration arrests. Last week, agents shot and killed Lorenzo Sagrado Araujo in Houston, Texas. While ICE said he had weaponized his vehicle, other men in the van he was driving said that was far from true, according to The Hill. They added that officers in unmarked vehicles trailed them before surrounding their vehicle on the driver and passenger side.

Then, on July 13 in Biddeford, Maine, ICE agents shot Joan Sebastian Guerrero multiple times, killing him in the driver's seat of his car. (If that wasn't already bad enough, officers are seen on video pulling him out of the car and cuffing him after the shooting.) In a statement issued half a day after the shooting, ICE said Guerrero fled the scene and argued he was a "public safety threat" that forced the officers to fire. Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins did not find this reasoning satisfactory. Here's what she said, according to The Hill:

"While the investigation of the Biddeford shooting is not yet complete, it raises sufficient critical questions that I spoke with DHS Secretary Mullin last night and urged him to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops," Collins said.

A spokesperson for ICE told CNN that the agency is "always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets." ICE's most notable killing also involved a car, when ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot into Renee Good's SUV, killing her as she tried to drive away from her neighborhood.

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