Trump administration orders ICE to suspend most vehicle stops after deadly shootings

Trump administration officials told Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to suspend most vehicle stops after two deadly shootings within a week, people familiar with the decision said Tuesday.

The order came after an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian driver Monday in Maine and a week after one shot and killed a motorist in Houston, renewing criticism of the agency’s tactics during enforcement operations.

The suspension is not absolute and there’s room for exceptions when executing a criminal warrant or working with partner agencies, according to a person who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive law enforcement operations. Matthew Felling, a spokesman for Maine Sen. Angus King, said the senator’s office was also told by the Department of Homeland Security that ICE was suspending vehicle stops.

Hundreds of people in Maine protested Tuesday over an ICE officer’s fatal shooting Monday of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national.

DHS said Monday that the officer, “fearing for public safety,” shot and killed Durán Guerrero while officers were watching the home of someone they believed was in the U.S. illegally and had a final order of removal from the country. It said in a post on X that when ICE tried to stop a car driven by someone who came from the home, the vehicle attempted to flee and the officer fired his weapon.

That was a shift from how King described the encounter hours earlier, when he said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon. King said Mullin told him the officers were trying to serve an arrest warrant, but not for the man who was shot.

DHS, which oversees ICE, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking clarity on what led to the shooting.

In a scathing post on X, outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the shooting a targeted killing “at the hands of the U.S. government.”

Petro, who has openly quarreled with U.S. President Donald Trump, urged Trump to provide an explanation and accused ICE officers of treating Durán Guerrero as “an inferior being without rights.”

The shooting sparked outrage among hundreds of protesters who gathered Tuesday outside of ICE detention center in Scarborough, just up the coast between Biddeford and Portland.

“These people are killers and they must leave our state now,” organizer Todd Chretien told the crowd, including some who held signs reading “Stop the murder” and “End this terror.”

Maine’s congressional delegation on Tuesday demanded a “comprehensive, transparent, and expedited investigation.”

Questions surround the shooting

Durán Guerrero’s shooting marked at least the ninth time ICE has used deadly force since Trump began his immigration crackdown.

Photos showed bullet holes in the Maine car’s windshield, but the officers involved in the shooting didn’t have body cameras, leaving many questions. Among them are how close the officer was to the vehicle when they fired, whether officers told Durán Guerrero to stop, and why ICE believes he had put the public in danger.

“We are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets. We will not disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics,” an ICE spokesperson said in a statement.

Maine’s other senator, Republican Susan Collins, said Mullin told her that DHS’ Office of Inspector General is investigating in cooperation with the FBI.

The state attorney general’s office, which noted that it’s working cooperatively with federal agencies to investigate, said initial statements suggest the driver was trying to flee in the direction of the officer, whose name hasn’t been released and who was placed on leave.

Video shows the shooting’s aftermath

According to neighbors and public records, Guerrero lived in an apartment about 150 feet from where his car came to a rest outside an apartment building across the street from a pawnshop and laundromat.

Video from a nearby business’ security camera obtained by the AP shows a white car slowly approaching an intersection before making several circles. A law enforcement SUV blocks its path and two officers open the driver’s door and drag out a limp body.

It isn’t clear from the video when the shots were fired.

Daniel Boucher, who lives nearby, said he heard a “pop, pop, pop” and ran to the intersection.

“His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop.’”

At one point, Boucher said, the officer who shot Durán Guerrero walked close to him.

“He looked at me and said, ‘He tried to run me over,’ or something to that effect,” Boucher said. “I don’t remember his exact words.”

Durán Guerrero is survived by his wife and young daughter

wo advocacy groups — the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! — said Durán Guerrero was authorized to work in the U.S.

Neighbors say Durán Guerrero was a friendly and familiar face even though they rarely chatted because he didn’t appear to speak English.

Sadie Dilboy and Cory Poulin, who own a laundromat near the intersection where the car came to a stop, said they saw Durán Guerrero all the time.

“Everyone knows him,” said Dilboy, who remembered that he often came to their store with his daughter and gave her quarters to buy candy.

Claudia Morton, who lives near Durán Guerrero and his family and often waved to him, was distraught over the shooting. “The whole world should be crying,” she said Tuesday.

Last week in Houston, an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo after federal authorities driving unmarked vehicles pursued him while he was driving to a construction job site.

The Trump administration’s enforcement efforts were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.

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Brook reported from New Orleans and Sisak from New York. Associated Press reporters Astrid Suarez in Bogota, Colombia, Rebecca Santana in Washington and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.