After Two Deadly ICE Shootings, Vehicle-Stop Policy Collides With Accountability Questions

A reported operational pause on most Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle stops has collided with President Donald Trump’s public demand that agents continue the practice, leaving the policy’s practical status unclear as two fatal shootings remain under investigation.

The reported pause followed the July 7 shooting of Lorenzo Salgado in Houston and the July 13 shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. Neither investigation has produced a final finding about whether the officers’ actions were lawful, justified or a violation of policy.

What changed — and what remains unclear

The Associated Press reported on July 14 that administration officials had told ICE officers to suspend most vehicle stops after the two shootings. The reported guidance allowed exceptions, including some criminal-warrant operations and work with partner agencies. AP said the account came from people familiar with the decision, and no publicly released agencywide written order was identified.

On July 15, Trump publicly said ICE should continue making traffic stops, calling them an important enforcement tool. AP reported that it was not clear whether ICE had reversed course and resumed most stops. Trump’s public statement did not, by itself, establish that any internal operational guidance had been formally rescinded.

That distinction matters to drivers, communities and officers because the difference between a pause, a limited-stop policy and a full resumption affects how encounters are initiated and what supervisors are expected to approve.

The two shootings are still open cases

The Maine Attorney General’s Office said the Biddeford shooting involved federal law enforcement and was being investigated with assistance from Biddeford, Saco, the Maine State Police and federal authorities. The office said the Enforcement Removal Operations officer was placed on leave, as is standard protocol in police-involved shootings.

The state’s preliminary account said the officer was conducting an enforcement operation related to a final order of removal when the subject allegedly attempted to flee in a vehicle in the direction of the officer. The attorney general’s office said the investigation was active and that it would provide updates as appropriate. That account was not a final conclusion about the shooting.

In Houston, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said its office, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and state and local partners were investigating Salgado’s death. The office described its account as preliminary. It said investigators believed the driver shifted the van into reverse and then forward while an officer was partially inside or immediately next to it, and that one officer fired a shot. The office emphasized that it was drawing no decisive conclusions while the investigation continued.

The officers involved reportedly did not have body-camera footage available from the encounters. That absence does not establish wrongdoing, but it removes a potentially important contemporaneous record that could help investigators and the public compare competing accounts about vehicle movement, warnings, positioning and the use of force.

What lawmakers were told about discipline

The oversight questions widened after a July 22 closed-door House Homeland Security Committee briefing on body cameras, vehicle stops and training. Rep. Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat, said lawmakers were told ICE had received 56 excessive-force complaints. Of those, 32 had been cleared, one officer had been referred for disciplinary action and no discipline had yet been imposed. The remaining cases were still under investigation, according to reporting by The Washington Post.

Those figures came from lawmakers after the briefing, not from a publicly released independent audit or final congressional finding. The Department of Homeland Security said ICE officers who violate agency policy are held accountable, receive de-escalation training and take an annual refresher course on use-of-force policies. DHS also said officers operate in dangerous circumstances and use training to protect themselves, fellow officers and the public.

Lawmakers also said current vehicle-stop guidance was verbal. According to Magaziner, officers were told to make stops only when there was no other alternative and to use lights and sirens. The Post reported that lawmakers were told some officers who had completed a shorter training curriculum would be retrained, although members said they did not receive clear answers about how many officers were affected or how the retraining would work.

The absence of a clearly published directive has made it harder to determine how the reported pause and Trump’s later statement fit together operationally.

The standards question

The Justice Department’s use-of-force policy provides federal context, but it is not necessarily a complete or directly controlling ICE policy. The Justice Manual says DOJ officers may use deadly force only when they reasonably believe a person poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury. It also says deadly force may not be used solely to prevent escape or solely to disable a moving vehicle.

Under that DOJ policy, firearms generally may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless a person in the vehicle is threatening someone with deadly force or the vehicle is being operated in a way that threatens death or serious injury and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appears available. The policy also addresses warnings, de-escalation, intervention, medical aid and training.

Whether those provisions apply to either shooting will depend on the evidence, the governing ICE rules and the findings of the separate investigations. The DOJ policy should not be treated as a substitute for confirming the specific rules and training that governed the ICE officers involved.

What to watch next

Administration officials have indicated that body cameras were being shipped to ICE offices, with nationwide deployment expected by the end of August. Cameras could improve documentation, but accountability will also depend on activation requirements, footage retention, access, independent review and disciplinary decisions.

The next consequential developments will be a written clarification of vehicle-stop policy, investigative reports, the release of video or other evidence, camera deployment, retraining directives and any formal disciplinary decisions. Until then, the central national question remains unresolved: Were ICE vehicle stops actually paused, limited or resumed after the two shootings?

Sources

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