# ICE Halts Most Vehicle Stops Nationwide After Back-to-Back Fatal Shootings in Maine, Houston
Federal immigration authorities have ordered agents to pull back from a tactic that has become a flashpoint in the nation’s immigration enforcement debate, directing officers to largely stop initiating vehicle stops after two people were killed by ICE gunfire in little more than a week.
A person familiar with the internal guidance, speaking on condition of anonymity because the matter involves sensitive law enforcement operations, confirmed the directive Tuesday. The pause is not total — agents can still stop vehicles when executing a criminal warrant or working alongside partner law enforcement agencies. ,The directive applies specifically to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, which handles civil immigration arrests, but not Homeland Security Investigations, which focuses on criminal cases. It amounts to a temporary pause while ERO officers undergo additional training on vehicle-stop tactics, and officers can still take part in stops involving partner agencies pursuing criminal suspects under judicial warrants.,
The decision followed intense political pressure, particularly from Maine’s congressional delegation. ,Republican Sen. Susan Collins said she personally urged Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to take the step after Monday’s shooting in her state., ,Collins said in a statement that while the investigation into the Biddeford shooting is not yet complete, it raised enough serious questions that she spoke directly with Mullin and pressed him to halt all non-urgent vehicle stops.,
**A killing that sparked outrage in Maine**
The immediate trigger was Monday’s shooting death of 26-year-old Colombian national Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero — identified in some reports as Joan Sebastian Guerrero — in Biddeford, a coastal city southwest of Portland. According to the Department of Homeland Security, ,Durán Guerrero attempted to flee the scene around 7 a.m. Monday when ICE tried to stop his vehicle. Fearing for public safety, the officer discharged his weapon. While Durán Guerrero was not the target of the operation, agents had tried to pull him over while conducting surveillance on the last known address of someone with a final removal order.,
That account shifted somewhat from what Sen. Angus King initially relayed after speaking with Secretary Mullin. ,King later told the Portland Press Herald that the victim was not the intended target of the warrant federal officers were executing during the operation.,
Adding to the controversy, ,none of the officers involved wore body cameras, and no video of the shooting has been publicly released,, leaving significant gaps in the public record about exactly what transpired in the moments before the officer opened fire. Photos from the scene showed bullet holes through the vehicle’s windshield.
The victim’s family has spoken publicly about their grief. ,Durán Guerrero’s father, Omar Duran, told a media partner that his son left behind a wife and 3-year-old daughter, adding that he had left Colombia to build a future for his family, and said he was praying the matter would be resolved with justice.,
The shooting drew a furious response from Colombia’s outgoing government. President Gustavo Petro, who has repeatedly clashed with President Trump, characterized the incident as a targeted killing carried out by American authorities and accused ICE officers of stripping the victim of his basic humanity.
Anger spilled into the streets of Maine, where hundreds gathered in protest Tuesday, including demonstrators outside an ICE detention facility in Scarborough. ,Nearly a dozen community leaders assembled outside the ICE office demanding federal agents leave the state, with attendees singing and holding signs reading “No More ICE Killings” and “End The ICE Age.”,
**Echoes of a deadly encounter in Houston**
The Maine shooting came just days after a strikingly similar episode in Texas. ,Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Houston man and Mexican national, was killed by an ICE agent last week when agents stopped his vehicle as part of an operation targeting a different individual., DHS has said Salgado Araujo ignored verbal commands and tried to ram an officer before he was shot. His family has disputed the characterization, noting he had no criminal record and had been close to securing legal work authorization after living in the country for decades.
As in Maine, ,no body cameras were worn during the Houston encounter, and no video of that shooting has been released either., Houston-area Rep. Sylvia Garcia has pushed back hard against the agency’s public explanations for both incidents. ,”The pattern is always the same,” Garcia said, criticizing statements from ICE attributing the shootings to self-defense or public-safety concerns, and questioning what it means if agents can claim that justification for using deadly force against nearly anyone.,
**A broader enforcement surge under scrutiny**
The twin shootings arrive as the Trump administration presses forward with an aggressive deportation campaign that has dramatically increased the pace of arrests nationwide. ,ICE, under pressure to ramp up arrests and deportations since the start of the administration, regularly conducts vehicle stops, which can be carried out without a judicial warrant.,
Not everyone believes the pause goes far enough. Houston-area Democratic Rep. Christian Menefee argued the training-focused fix fails to address a systemic issue, saying bluntly that ,”a temporary training won’t solve a deeply ingrained problem.”, Other Democrats have gone further, calling for the agency’s practices to be overhauled entirely or for ICE itself to be abolished.
DHS’s internal watchdog, working alongside the FBI, is now investigating the Maine shooting, while the officer involved has been placed on administrative leave. Meanwhile, Maine’s attorney general’s office says it is cooperating with federal investigators as it examines preliminary evidence, including indications that the driver may have been moving toward the officer when shots were fired.
For residents of Biddeford, the tragedy has left a deep and personal wound. Neighbors described Durán Guerrero as a warm, familiar presence in the community who was often seen with his young daughter, even though a language barrier limited casual conversation. As investigators continue piecing together the final moments of his life, the broader question of how ICE conducts enforcement operations across the country — and whether this week’s pause will bring lasting change — remains very much unresolved.