Two men died in separate ICE shootings within six days, neither of them the target of federal enforcement operations, and neither encounter recorded by body cameras that the Department of Homeland Security promised to deploy months ago. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old construction worker and father of three U.S. citizens, was killed in Houston on July 7. Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero died in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13. Both shootings involved traffic stops.
ICE said it mistook Salgado Araujo for someone else when officers tried to pull him over in the early morning. The agency claimed he "weaponized" his vehicle and tried to run over an agent, who fired in self-defense. Witnesses in the car with Salgado Araujo called that account "simply false," according to their attorney. Photos showed bullet holes in Durán Guerrero's windshield. ICE said the agent fired after Guerrero attempted to flee and the officer feared for "public safety." Advocacy groups said Guerrero was authorized to work in the U.S. when he was killed.
Body Cameras Still Missing
Officers in both shootings weren't wearing body cameras. DHS officials told USA TODAY the cameras weren't deployed because "back-to-back Democrat shutdowns" delayed the rollout. That explanation came despite a February promise from then-Secretary Kristi Noem that "DHS law enforcement across the country" would begin wearing body cameras after two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed by federal officers in Minneapolis the same year. DHS initially described Good and Pretti as "domestic terrorists," though witnesses and bystander videos contradicted those claims. CNN reported that some of DHS's narratives were later undermined by video, court rulings, and other evidence.
ICE issued a body-camera policy on February 19 this year. The Biden administration ordered federal law enforcement agencies to begin using body cameras in 2022, and by 2024 around 1,000 ICE officers across five cities were using the technology. Trump rescinded his Democratic predecessor's order shortly after taking office. In March, former acting ICE chief Todd Lyons told Congress that around 3,000 out of 13,000 ICE officers were using body cameras—less than a quarter. It's unclear exactly how many officers ICE employs today, though in January the agency said it had hired and was training enough people to expand to 22,000 officers.
In a July 15 statement, DHS said ICE will "ensure each arrest team has an individual wearing a body camera." A DHS spokesperson said the cameras were needed because of increased attacks on officers and said more than half of the field offices had received them, with the rest expected to get them in less than 60 days. CNN reported that DHS pledged to "rapidly" deploy body cameras nationally after the Houston and Maine shootings.
Policy Whiplash on Traffic Stops
Trump's administration ordered a pause on most vehicle stops after the fatal shootings prompted calls for independent investigations and renewed criticism of the agency. The pause applied to agents in Enforcement and Removal Operations, the branch within ICE charged with arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants. It barred agents from initiating stops, though they were told to work with partner agencies if executing a criminal warrant on someone in a vehicle. Hours later, Trump reversed course.
President Donald Trump wrote on his social media site, "We CANNOT give up one of ICE's most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!" He said ending those stops would be "playing right into the criminal's hands." Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said people illegally in the country would be "arrested and deported wherever they are," but didn't directly say whether ICE officers would be allowed to carry out traffic stops. A White House official later said the guidance had been reversed.
CNN reported that Trump became furious after watching coverage of the temporary change in policy that suggested he was weakening immigration enforcement. Early Wednesday, he ordered it overturned, posting on Truth Social that "The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won't happen on my watch." Prominent MAGA figures, including longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon and conservative lawyer Mike Davis, criticized the suspension. Davis said on Bannon's "War Room" show, "You work for President Trump, you don't work for Senate Democrats, you don't work for Susan Collins," and added, "This guy needs to stop being a wimp, he needs to stop being weak, he needs to stop being stupid. If he's not up to doing the job, get the hell out of the job and we'll put someone there who can."
Political Fallout
Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said in a statement on July 14 that "it is extremely unfortunate" that the ICE officer involved in the Maine shooting wasn't wearing a body camera and also blamed Democrats for the hold-up on the rollout of the technology. She said two shootings in a week "raise very serious questions" and warrant a halt in vehicle stops for the time being. Maine's Democratic governor, Janet Mills, said ICE should be scrapped as a federal agency if it can't be fixed, and said the agency needs changes "before more families are robbed of a loved one." Border czar Tom Homan said the investigation needs to play out and that officers will be held accountable if they're found to have acted inappropriately or illegally.
AP reported there have been at least 10 deaths involving encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched his deportation campaign, and at least four involved people in vehicles. The Florida death came when a 28-year-old man was struck and killed by a tractor trailer while running from immigration and other federal officers. AP said Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins urged Department of Homeland Security leaders "to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops." AP also said ICE has been under pressure to beef up arrest and deportation numbers and that it often blames immigration advocates who advise immigrants to stay in their homes unless ICE produces a warrant signed by an independent judge. ICE officers say that means they're forced to find other ways to make arrests.
The deaths sparked protests in Houston and Biddeford. The shootings of Salgado Araujo and Durán Guerrero reignited criticism of the agency and prompted calls for independent investigations. CNN said the agency's shifting explanations, the body-camera rollout, and the traffic-stop reversal left ICE under intense scrutiny as Trump pressed ahead with his deportation agenda and his broader political fight over elections. CNN said DHS's public statements had become slower and softer in the wake of the newer shootings.
Trump also faced the shootings while preparing a primetime address on elections. AP said he planned a 9 p.m. Thursday speech that could revisit long-debunked conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden and that he had escalated calls for Republicans to pass tighter federal voting rules for November's midterm elections. Trump said, "It doesn't get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country," and added, "We'll be discussing other things, too," and, "It's going to be a very big announcement." AP said Trump repeated baseless claims of voter fraud in the Los Angeles primary race for mayor on Monday and that federal prosecutors said they were opening fraud investigations in California last month after Trump drew attention to the claim.
Why This Matters:
Two families lost loved ones in encounters that weren't supposed to happen—neither man was the target of the operations that killed them. The absence of body cameras in both shootings leaves the public with only the agency's word against witnesses who say officers' accounts are false. That's the same pattern that played out in Minneapolis earlier this year, when DHS's initial narratives about "domestic terrorists" later fell apart under scrutiny. The whiplash on traffic stops—paused one day, resumed the next after political pressure—suggests enforcement policy is being driven by optics and partisan demands rather than officer safety or accountability. Families like Salgado Araujo's and Durán Guerrero's are bearing the human cost of an agency under pressure to increase arrests while operating without the transparency tools that were promised months ago. The broader context matters too: at least 10 deaths in immigration encounters since Trump's deportation campaign began, with no independent oversight mechanism in place and cameras still missing from thousands of officers' uniforms.