ICE To Halt Vehicle Stops After Agents Kill Two More Immigrants in Deadly Enforcement Errors: Report

Facing outrage from immigrant rights groups, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers reportedly will no longer stop vehicles as part of standard removal operations after officers killed two men who were in their cars at the time of the confrontations. Reports say vehicle stops will cease except for operations targeting the most wanted criminal aliens until officers get additional training. In both cases in the past week, neither man killed had a violent criminal history, but each was being pulled over when he tried to injure or evade officers, according to statements from ICE. “We are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets,” an ICE spokesperson told The New York Sun in a statement, without confirming reports of a change in plans for vehicle stops. “We will not disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics.”The two killings within the span of a week prompted fresh outrage from immigrant rights and public safety advocates, recalling recent outcries over the back-to-back deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of immigration officers at Minneapolis in January. Those deaths led to the departure of the former Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem.The victim last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was not the intended target of the operation officers were carrying out on July 7 in Houston, Texas, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed last week. Officers mistook the Mexican national, whom ICE confirmed had been living illegally in the United States for 30 years, saying he resembled their target and was driving a similar white van. Salgado is the 20th person to die in ICE custody — either because of a medical emergency in detention, pre-existing medical condition, or a deadly confrontation — since the beginning of the year. ICE reportedly held in detention a peak 70,776 people in late January this year and is averaging 1,236 removals per day this year.A spokesperson for ICE said on X that Salgado Araujo “rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense.”Late Tuesday, after demonstrators gathered at Houston’s City Hall to demand accountability from the federal government, Mayor John Whitmire told city councilmembers that the 911 call connected to Salgado’s shooting and other surveillance video from city resources had been sent to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Officials from that office were meeting with the FBI on Wednesday.“The city is doing everything possible to participate and assist in an investigation,” he said in a city council meeting monopolized by protesters demanding ICE out of Houston. “These are challenging times for our city but for our nation as well.”The agency identified the second man, killed Monday in Biddeford, Maine, as Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 26, a Colombian national, who fled a vehicle pulled over by federal authorities. “ICE law enforcement attempted to conduct a vehicle stop. The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon. The driver of the vehicle was struck, and emergency services were immediately contacted,” the agency said in a statement Monday.Local media outlets in Maine have reported that Duran Guerrero had a Social Security number and work permit. His partner and their three-year-old daughter arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting, which took place near their home, according to reporting from the Portland Press Herald. The office of Maine’s independent, Democrat-caucusing senator, Angus King, confirmed that Duran was not the target of the enforcement action that ended in his death. Calling for a full, fair, and transparent investigation, he told CNN that he wanted to know whether ICE agents had a reasonable expectation of bodily harm or deadly force to justify the shooting. Mr. King added that the premise for having ICE agents in Biddeford is “false” as only 10 percent of 200 people involved in a “crackdown” over the winter had a criminal record. “Ninety percent of the people had no criminal record. So, this is not about the worst of the worst. This is a broad sweep with people with a quota,” he said. Maine’s other senator, Susan Collins, also called for an investigation. On Tuesday, she said that she had spoken with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to urge him “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops” and was “encouraged that the Department has agreed to do so.”“It is extremely unfortunate that the agent involved did not have a body-worn camera,” she noted, adding that delays in funding the Homeland Security budget meant expanded use of body-worn cameras, increased de-escalation training, and more inspector general investigations have been put off.“While it is clear ICE needs to improve its performance, it is important to remember that the work ICE does to protect our country goes far beyond immigration enforcement,” she said. “Eliminating ICE would make our country less safe and endanger the lives and welfare of countless individuals.”

ICE To Halt Vehicle Stops After Agents Kill Two More Immigrants in Deadly Enforcement Errors: Report

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