OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
10:48 AM – Tuesday, July 14, 2026
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers across the nation are reportedly being instructed to end most vehicle stops, effective immediately, following recent shootings in Texas and Maine.
However, the directive does not apply to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which handles criminal investigations. Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) agents are still permitted to participate in vehicle stops if they are working alongside partner law enforcement agencies to target serious criminal suspects who have active judicial warrants.
Fox News and CBS reported on Tuesday, per several “anonymous sources,” that ICE will undergo the major policy change temporarily to provide additional training to agents performing traffic stops.
Nonetheless, agents will continue to conduct vehicle stops for targets with serious violent criminal histories who are considered to be the most offensive targets, Fox News added.
The policy shift comes after federal officers were involved in two fatal shootings in the last week during traffic stop operations.
Last Tuesday, ICE announced that an illegal alien from Mexico was fatally shot by an agent while trying to evade arrest. The agency explained he had “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over” a law enforcement official, which prompted the officer to fire his weapon “in self-defense.”
The deceased man was identified as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
Additionally, on Monday, an immigration officer reportedly shot another undocumented individual in a similar incident in Biddeford, Maine, while the man was being pursued for deportation under a final order of removal.
Senator Angus King (I-Maine) highlighted that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin would detail the situation further.
“He was in a vehicle — pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the [DHS] secretary used was ‘weaponized’ the vehicle and was shot by an ICE agent,” King said.
The Maine attorney general’s office is investigating the incident alongside other agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The agent in question has since been placed on leave.
Immigrant rights groups identified the man killed as a “26-year-old Colombian national.”
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