ICE pauses vehicle stops after shootings in Texas and Maine

Federal immigration officials have been directed to temporarily stop conducting vehicle stops, according to a homeland security source, following two recent fatal shootings in Texas and Maine in which immigration officers shot and killed immigrants inside their vehicles.

Multiple news organisations, including Fox News and CNN, confirmed that officials across the country received the directive. Fox News reported that some vehicle stops would still be permitted when targeting “the most egregious criminal aliens”.

The move comes after the high-profile shootings renewed calls for greater accountability in immigration enforcement-related deaths amid the Trump administration’s intensified immigration arrests and deportations.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told the Guardian in an email: “We are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets. We will not disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics.”

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On Monday morning, 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Maine. His death came less than a week after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Houston, Texas, while driving to work.

Both incidents sparked widespread public criticism, with community members, lawmakers and civil liberties organisations demanding independent investigations into the shootings. In each case, the officers involved were not wearing body cameras.

Fox News reported on Tuesday that the suspension of vehicle stops is expected to be temporary while ICE officers undergo “new training” focused on vehicle stop procedures.

Following Salgado’s death last week, ICE told the Guardian that the agency had already introduced “additional training” for new officers, including instruction on “high-risk vehicle stops”. The training began in July and also includes follow-up instruction for officers already engaged in enforcement operations.

Since January 2025, federal immigration officers, including personnel from ICE and Customs and Border Protection, have fatally shot 11 people. Five of those killed by ICE officers, including Durán Guerrero, Salgado and three others, were inside their vehicles at the time of the shootings.

In most of the cases, DHS said the individuals had “weaponized” their vehicles against federal law enforcement officers, prompting officers to open fire. However, in several incidents, video footage later raised questions about those claims and cast doubt on the department’s account.

Among the most high-profile cases was the January killing of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis, who was shot and killed by an ICE officer.