EXCLUSIVE: ICE Orders Agents To Cease All Vehicle Stops After Recent Shootings

Federal immigration officers across the country have been told to stop pulling over vehicles after recent shootings in Maine and Texas.

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Three Homeland Security sources told The Daily Wire Tuesday that they were told “no more vehicle stops for now.” The new directive has the potential to massively impact ICE’s ability to make arrests as officers often prefer to catch targets through traffic stops where they are out of their homes, where illegal immigrants could have access to weapons and where officers generally don’t need judicial warrants.

“Numbers are going down, we can’t do sh**,” an agency source fumed.

The pause comes a day after a 26-year-old Colombian man was fatally shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers as they were trying to pull over his vehicle in Biddeford, Maine.

Maine Sen. Angus King (I-ME) said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him that the man who was shot was not the person ICE was trying to arrest, according to CNN. King made the statement while walking back an earlier statement he said Mullin made that the deceased man was ICE’s intended target.

In a statement Monday, an ICE spokesperson said the driver, who was shot and killed, “attempted to flee” and that the officer who fired their weapon was “fearing for public safety.”

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“The driver of the vehicle was struck, and emergency services were immediately contacted. He passed away from his injuries,” ICE said.

ICE did not claim that the man shot and killed by officers tried to hit them with his vehicle and emphasized that the incident is still under investigation. The deceased man’s identity has yet to be released.

Last Tuesday, an ICE officer in Houston fatally shot Mexican illegal immigrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo while conducting a vehicle stop. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Araujo wasn’t their original target, but claimed that he “weaponized” his vehicle and tried to plow down an officer, prompting one to fire “in self-defense.”

Anti-ICE protesters have taken to the streets in Texas and Maine to express their outrage over the latest shootings. Demonstrators attempted to storm Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins’ office Monday, shouting “Vote her out.”

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DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.