ICE halts traffic stops after two fatal shootings in less than a week

ICE to require body cameras on arrest teams

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has suspended the use of traffic stops to arrest immigrants following two fatal shootings in less than a week, according to current and former ICE officials familiar with the matter.

ICE leadership instructed officers not to stop moving vehicles to arrest or question the occupants inside, the people said. The directive eliminates one of the most common tools immigration officers rely on for arrests and will almost certainly reduce the number of people the agency has been taking in to meet its internal arrest quotas, the officials said.

The decision came the day after a federal immigration officer fatally shot a 26-year-old man in coastal Biddeford, Maine. The Department of Homeland Security said officers were conducting an operation related to a final order of removal at a residence. Officers tried to stop a person leaving the home in a vehicle, and an officer who was “fearing for public safety discharged his weapon,” DHS said.

Last week, a man was killed during an immigration-enforcement operation in Houston, federal authorities said. DHS initially said that the man had weaponized his vehicle and that an immigration officer fired in self-defense. Lawmakers in Maine and Texas have said neither man was the intended target of the enforcement operations.

ICE will also now avoid sending officers out to make arrests unless at least one person on the arrest team is wearing a body camera, the officials said. The agency only has enough cameras to equip about half of its officers, and though it has ordered more, the specific type of body camera it uses is on back order.

The second shooting in roughly a week left top ICE and other administration officials deeply shaken, according to the current and former ICE officials. In recent weeks, the agency had been ramping up arrests to meet a quota of 2,000 a day, with officers meticulously staking out the homes and workplaces of immigrants they were targeting for arrest — and most often catching them as they left one of those locations by car.

An ICE spokesman declined to comment on the specific policy changes. “We are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets,” he said.

Officials said, in addition to the policy change, they plan to re-evaluate training so that officers are better equipped to de-escalate situations where immigrants try to ram them with their cars, the people said. In cases where immigrants attempt to flee, officers for now have been instructed to wait and attempt another arrest at a different time.

There had been a relative lull in federal immigration activity after two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed in separate shootings in Minnesota in January. Good was also killed while behind the wheel of a vehicle.