His Own Agency Paused ICE Traffic Stops After Two Deaths.
One Day Later, Trump Overruled It.
Two fatal ICE shootings in one week — Houston on July 7, Biddeford, Maine on July 13 — pushed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin (R) to quietly order agents to stop most vehicle stops nationwide. The directive went out verbally to field offices, never in writing, according to three DHS sources who spoke to the Daily Wire.
It lasted less than a day. On the morning of July 15, President Trump posted on Truth Social that ICE “CANNOT give up” traffic stops, calling them one of the agency’s “most important and effective” tools — publicly overruling his own department’s response to the shootings that killed two men.
Congressional Democrats, already escalating from “reform ICE” to “abolish ICE” language after the shootings, treated Trump’s reversal as confirmation their harshest description was accurate.
- 2 fatal shootings — in one week — Houston (July 7) and Biddeford, Maine (July 13) — triggered DHS's traffic-stop pause; neither victim was the operation's target
- Verbal only — the pause was communicated through ERO field directors, never issued as a written memo — a deliberate choice, per DHS sources
- <24 hours — how long the pause lasted before President Trump publicly overruled it on Truth Social
- 11th — the fatal shooting Maine Senate candidate Shenna Bellows (D) says this is, involving ICE or Border Patrol since Trump took office
- ~2,000 arrests/day — the internal quota one anonymous senior ICE official says pushed agents to “the breaking point” · Source: The Daily Beast
On July 7, ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, during a vehicle stop in Houston; he was not the operation’s target. Six days later, an ICE agent fatally shot Joan Sebastian Guerrero, 26, during an attempted vehicle stop in Biddeford, Maine — also not the target. Both shootings came during traffic stops, the specific tactic that has drawn the sharpest criticism from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates for months.
After a personal call from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Secretary Mullin ordered ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division to cease most vehicle stops — with exceptions for the “most serious” cases involving active judicial warrants. Border czar Tom Homan (Trump-administration appointee) described it publicly as “not a policy change,” but “a temporary pause” for training review. DHS declined to discuss the directive on the record.
The pause survived less than a day. On the morning of July 15, President Trump posted on Truth Social directing ICE to resume traffic stops, describing them as indispensable to the agency’s mission.
We CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.'s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! I.C.E., be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job. Keep those Crime Stat Records coming! Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won't happen on my watch.
An anonymous senior ICE official told the Daily Beast that agents are “being forced to have quotas again” — a roughly 2,000-arrests-a-day internal demand the official says pushed agents to “the breaking point” before the shootings. If accurate, the quota pressure sits upstream of both the shootings and the same-week reversal: DHS paused the tactic that produced two deaths, then the White House reinstated it citing enforcement numbers.
Hundreds protested at Sen. Collins’s Biddeford office, chanting “Vote her out!” Maine Senate candidates Troy Jackson (D) and Nirav Shah (D) joined the protest and called to abolish ICE outright. In Congress, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said the agency is “targeting, profiling, stalking Latinos” and called to “disband ICE in this Congress,” while Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) argued “an agency that acts as though it is above the law cannot be reformed at the margins.”
Federal agents were involved in a fatal shooting in Biddeford this morning. Someone is dead. I don't have details, and won't speculate. But... this is at least the 11th fatal shooting involving ICE or Border Patrol under Trump. It's time to get ICE off our streets.
July 14: DHS Secretary Mullin orders ICE to pause most vehicle stops, verbally, after two fatal shootings.
July 15: President Trump publicly overrules the pause on Truth Social, directing agents to resume stops.
No written DHS memo exists for either decision — both are known only through anonymous sourcing and the President's own public statement.
DHS's own field leadership concluded, after two deaths in a week, that the tactic needed a pause. The President concluded, one day later, that it didn't. Neither decision was ever put in writing — which means the only record of either one is a Truth Social post and the anonymous accounts of the people who had to carry both instructions out.
