President Donald Trump has backed ICE amid controversy over the immigration task force killing two people in a week.
The latest backlash came after an ICE agent fatally shot a Colombian national during an immigration enforcement operation in Maine, a week after the agency used deadly force against a Mexican migrant in a Texas traffic stop.
Amid the furor, Trump has come out swinging for ICE, unraveling in a post before 7 a.m. on Wednesday. “The men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done,” he declared, then repeating MAGA talking points about immigration and crime stats.
“CRIME IS WAY DOWN IN AMERICA, in many cases with numbers that haven’t been seen in decades. The Open Border Policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed 25,000,000 people to pour into our Country, unchecked and unvetted. Many were Criminals, and we have to get them out. In order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” he said.
Trump’s “25 million” claim is a familiar immigration talking point, but the numbers don’t add up. Border officials recorded roughly 10 million migrant encounters during the Biden administration. Those encounters count events, not unique individuals, meaning the same person can appear multiple times. Millions were also expelled, returned, or deported.
He continued: “Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands. The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch. I.C.E., be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job. Keep those Crime Stat Records coming! Remember, you are loved and respected in America.”
It comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot a man, 26, dead on Monday. The force said agents were watching an address in Biddeford, Maine, for a person with a final order of removal when they tried to stop someone from driving off.
“The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” ICE said, adding “the driver of the vehicle was struck.”
The agent has been placed on leave pending a probe into the incident. Local lawmakers and neighbors have identified the victim as Joan Sebastian Guerrero.
The immigration goon squad also killed a person last week. Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, who had been living in the U.S. for decades, was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Houston, Texas, as he made the journey to work. The agency said the officer shot in self-defense.
Neither of the men killed in the past week is believed to have been the target of the operation that killed them.
Reuters reports that at least seven people have been killed in immigration enforcement operations since Trump retook the White House in January last year.
It comes after Daily Beast reporting revealed that a senior ICE official warned the agency’s arrest quotas were pushing exhausted agents toward dangerous confrontations, including fatal encounters. Hours later, ICE ordered agents to halt traffic stops nationwide, according to multiple Department of Homeland Security sources.
The internal guidance, issued to Enforcement and Removal Operations field directors, instructed officers to stop conducting vehicle stops until further notice following the deaths of the two aforementioned men, the sources told PunchUp, the Daily Beast’s sister investigations outlet on Substack.
The pause was first reported by The Daily Wire, which cited Homeland Security sources saying agents had been told there would be “no more vehicle stops for now.” One source reportedly complained: “Numbers are going down, we can’t do s--t.”
The move followed warnings from a senior ICE official that pressure from the White House to meet a target of 2,000 arrests a day was driving exhausted agents into increasingly risky situations. “Leaders are being fired for bad numbers,” the official told PunchUp.
