Trump Demands ICE Restart Traffic Stops Despite 2 Fatal Shootings in a Week: ‘It Won’t Happen on My Watch’

Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo

President Donald Trump demanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement resume traffic stops a day after the agency mostly paused the practice.

Trump’s demand, issued via a Wednesday morning Truth Social post, comes after ICE was involved in two fatal traffic stops within a week.

The president wrote:

The men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done. 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! 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. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

ICE has come under intense criticism after agents were told Tuesday to suspend most traffic stops until further notice and work with other law enforcement agencies when vehicles are involved in their arrests.

Immigration agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on July 7 in Houston, during a traffic stop.

Salgado Araujo, 52, was not the agents’ intended target.

On Monday, ICE agents shot and killed another man, 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero, in Maine also during a traffic stop. The Colombian man, who had permission to work in the United States, was not the intended target of the ICE operation.

The Department of Homeland Security later claimed Guerrero had tried to flee, prompting an ICE agent to open fire out of fear for public safety.

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