White House says ICE vehicle stops remain a necessary enforcement tool
White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said ICE vehicle stops will continue as authorities respond to recent fatal crashes.
Traffic stops, one of the Trump administration’s increasingly common immigration tactics, have come under intense scrutiny following two fatal shootings by federal agents in less than a week.
Over a six-day period, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and killed two people during encounters at vehicle stops. That sparked widespread protests and led agency leaders to suspend most stops across the country, a decision that was quickly reversed by President Donald Trump.
“We cannot let go of traffic stops, one of ICE’s most important and effective crime-fighting tools,” the president said in a social media post.
The shootings and rapid policy shifts have prompted calls for a review of ICE’s tactics and raised broader questions about how the administration’s push for mass deportations is changing the way immigration agents operate in American society.
Former ICE leaders said traffic stops were never a primary enforcement tool. When investigators make arrests in the community, they typically rely on surveillance and careful planning to detain people in their homes, workplaces, or other locations. Those operations were typically limited to immigrants deemed to pose a threat to public safety or those with serious criminal convictions, former officials said.
But that has changed as the Trump administration seeks to carry out what it calls the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history. ICE agents, Border Patrol agents, and other Department of Homeland Security employees increasingly rely on street operations – Including car stops – Find and arrest illegal immigrants, many of whom have no criminal records.
As street activity increases, police-involved shootings also increase. Since early last year, immigration agents have shot and killed more than 20 people, most of whom were in their cars at the time of the attacks, according to a USA TODAY analysis of public statements, lawsuits and court records.
Police and use-of-force experts say this worrying trend suggests a lack of training and experience on how to safely conduct traffic stops, which are widely known among law enforcement officials as one of the most dangerous types of encounters an officer can face.
“Traffic stops are tricky, sometimes dangerous, and require thorough scenario-based training to learn how to stop properly,” said David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in police procedurals. “ICE agents don’t seem to understand that.”
“Our first goal is to keep our officers safe and keep criminals off our streets. Illegal aliens will be arrested and deported wherever they are,” Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin said in a statement to USA TODAY.
2 vehicle stops 6 days apart
On July 13, ICE agents shot and killed a Colombian man in a residential neighborhood in Biddeford, Maine. The Department of Homeland Security said officers opened fire “out of fear for public safety” as the man tried to flee the scene.
Six days earlier, ICE agents shot and killed a Mexican national during a traffic stop in Houston, Texas. Federal officials said the man tried to hit them with his car, but witnesses disputed that.
Amid outrage over the killings, top officials at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security ordered officers to halt most traffic stops and prioritize other immigration enforcement tactics.
In an interview with Fox News, White House Border Security Director Tom Homan described the suspension as a “short-term review to ensure the safety and correct behavior of ICE agents.”
Homan also disputed claims by some conservative commentators that the moratorium would hinder the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, saying agents could make arrests before they get into their homes or cars.
Nevertheless, President Trump slammed the decision on social media the next morning, calling it a victory for Democrats and criminals.
Within hours, the White House confirmed that it had overturned President Trump’s order suspending traffic stops to allow authorities to evaluate training policies, to the frustration of law enforcement experts, former ICE agents, members of Congress and others who thought the suspension was a logical response to recent deadly incidents.
“I don’t understand why anyone would oppose a pause when there are so many shootings and so many deaths,” said John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE director under former President Barack Obama.
‘It wasn’t necessary’: Former ICE agents say traffic stops are rare
For most of its existence, ICE has taken illegal immigrants into custody from local or state law enforcement and relied heavily on local jails for arrests.
This comes after the Obama administration expanded a program that connects people incarcerated in local jails with federal immigration officials. President Obama later repealed the program, but President Trump reinstated it during his first term as president.
Sandweg said when ICE agents made arrests in the community, the operations targeted people convicted of serious or violent crimes. Of all the arrests ICE made on the streets, most occurred in residential homes.
“Traffic stops will occur. They are not prohibited, but they were not the focus of the operation,” he said. “We didn’t need them.”
Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE official who worked under the Biden administration and the first Trump administration, said she spent a significant amount of time investigating each street action during her time at the agency.
“We knew where we were picking them up and why we were picking them up. We observed them over several days or weeks to establish their patterns,” she said. “You did that so that you could get them in the safest way for the officer and the target.”
Agents flood into community amid deportation campaign
Since President Trump returned to office, immigration officials have increasingly engaged in street operations, including vehicle stops, to carry out the president’s deportation plans. This has been made possible in part because of the closure of the southern border, which experts say has allowed the agency to operate within the country. Illegal border crossings have plummeted under the Trump administration.
data: Trump administration’s immigration crackdown
The number of street arrests by ICE has increased 11 times compared to the monthly average in the final months of the Biden administration, according to a report from the Deportation Data Project.
During the same period, transfers from state prisons and local jails to ICE custody nearly doubled, and the number of people arrested without conviction was seven times higher than under President Joe Biden, according to the report.
The increase in street arrests comes as the agency more than doubles its staff and pushes to expand the number of illegal immigrants it apprehends for deportation. White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has previously said ICE’s minimum goal is to arrest 3,000 people per day.
At the same time, the number of shootings by federal officers has skyrocketed, with more than 20 similar incidents since August, most involving vehicles and traffic stops, Department of Homeland Security and court records show.
Former ICE agents and law enforcement experts blamed, in part, a pressure campaign to increase arrests and a lack of vigilance by agents on the ground. They pointed to two recent shootings in Texas and Maine in which ICE agents shot and killed men who were not the target of immigration enforcement.
“Part of what has been forgotten along the way under this mass deportation program is the careful planning that took a lot of time and thought,” Fleischaker said. “We’re seeing tragic mistakes like this because there’s less planning and they’re flying by the seat of their pants more often.”
Homeland Security and administration officials have largely defended their employees, linking the shootings to an increase in vehicular assaults and noncooperation fueled by rhetoric from Democratic officials.
Trump officials argue that the increase in street activity is also the result of local authorities implementing sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with police and federal immigration authorities.
“Our law enforcement officers are facing a more than 1,300% increase in vehicle attacks as they work to enforce our nation’s laws,” Mullin said in a statement. “We urge caution against illegal aliens, but trying to evade arrest is dangerous. This reckless illegal alien activity came after sanctuary politicians held a webinar and shared resources on how to openly defy ICE.”
Riskier tactics
Jeffrey Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina who studies the use of deadly force by police, said vehicle stops are among the most dangerous encounters law enforcement officers face on a daily basis.
To manage these risks, officers receive extensive training in everything from approaching vehicles to assessing threats and de-escalating conflicts. Former ICE officials said immigration officers received similar guidance under the Obama, Biden and first Trump administrations.
Homan said the agency’s current vehicle stop training is “pretty extensive” and comparable to what other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies offer.
But former ICE officers and law enforcement experts said training alone is not enough. Unlike local police officers who regularly conduct traffic stops throughout their careers, immigration officers have historically relied on other enforcement methods and have had little opportunity to gain experience responding to roadside encounters.
“Even in the best of circumstances, when you lack experience and are doing something difficult and dangerous, things can easily go wrong,” said David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies police procedurals.
Several experts also questioned whether vehicle stops are necessary at many immigration points. They noted that investigators can often make arrests at residences or other locations where the situation is more controlled and the risk of conflict is lower.
Homan, who previously led ICE under the Obama administration and during the first term of the Trump administration, has made similar points publicly.
“We’re hearing a lot right now that this is going to impact ICE arrests, but I don’t think that will happen,” Homan told Fox News. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. Once the foreigner leaves the house, you can arrest him before he gets into the car. You can just wait until the car reaches its destination.”
White House announces vehicle stops have resumed
The brief suspension of vehicle stops across the country highlighted how seriously immigration authorities were responding to the outrage over the spate of shootings. But once the president intervened, administration officials who had defended the moratorium quickly reaffirmed their support for the tactic.
“President Trump and I are on the same page,” Marin said on X. “We want @ICEgov officers to have every option available to them to keep them safe while carrying out their mission to deport as many criminal illegal aliens from our country as possible.”
Homan later echoed that sentiment, saying vehicle stops are essential to immigration enforcement, but he had previously said the stops would not affect the administration’s deportation goals.
“Vehicle stops are a primary tool for doing our job, and we must continue to do so,” he told Fox News.
On July 16, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt confirmed that “vehicle stops continue” and said the Department of Homeland Security was providing “verbal guidance” to all field offices.
As the administration moves forward with its immigration crackdown campaign, former ICE agents and law enforcement experts have warned that resuming vehicle stops without overhauling training and tactics could lead to more violence.
“This is an immigration policy that gets in the way of common sense,” Sandweg said of Trump’s decision to overturn the order. “These stops are not good for anyone, not the authorities, not the officers involved, not the suspects.”
