President Donald Trump told ICE to resume vehicle stops after The Daily Wire first reported on Tuesday that the agency paused the practice in the wake of multiple deadly shootings.
Trump said in a Wednesday morning Truth Social post that the stops were necessary to implement his mass deportation agenda. He added that giving up the vehicle stops, where many immigration arrests are made, played right into the hands of the “radical Left.”
“The Open Border Policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed 25,000,000 people to pour into our Country, unchecked and unvetted,” the president said. “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.”
Trump then said ICE should continue making vehicle stops and called for more arrests.
“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,” he said. “Keep those Crime Stat Records coming! Remember, you are loved and respected in America.”
The pause came after shootings involving ICE officers pulling over vehicles during immigration enforcement operations in Texas and Maine. Three Department of Homeland Security sources told The Daily Wire they received a directive stipulating “no more vehicle stops for now.”
Many ICE officers were upset by the pause because agents prefer to make arrests during traffic stops and not at homes. Arrests in a home require a judicial warrant and can mean the target has more access to weapons.
“Numbers are going down, we can’t do sh*t,” one agency source told The Daily Wire.
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan said Tuesday that the pause would be “short term” while more training was done.
“I think what they’re doing is taking the pause to make sure that, number one, the ICE officers have everything they need to stay safe because vehicle attacks are up 3,400%, and they’re going to make sure, is the training sufficient? Did anything go wrong? I’m confident they’re going to get back to their policy of vehicle stops,” he said during an interview on Fox News.
The pause was implemented after the shooting in Maine of a 26-year-old Colombian who the Department of Homeland Security said “attempted to flee” and left the officer “fearing for public safety.”