Christmas. 15, 2026, 1:16 PM EDT<\/time><\/p>\n

By<\/span>David J. Bier<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Following two killings of motorists in two weeks in Maine and Texas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement briefly suspended most vehicle stops<\/a> to retrain its agents<\/a>. The suspension implicitly conceded the obvious — ICE could have prevented these deaths — but President Donald Trump quickly overruled the agency, ordering it to resume the stops.<\/p>\n

The president posted on social media Wednesday<\/a> that “we cannot give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” But he’s wrong. His own adviser, White House border czar Tom Homan, has admitted<\/a> that vehicle stops are not an important enforcement tool, and that permanently ending them would better protect ICE agents, their targets and the public.<\/p>\n

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ICE agents appear to relish the car chases and often fail to stop the suspect before they drive away.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
It’s true that ICE officers receive <\/a>less training<\/a> on vehicle stops. That’s because, before this administration, <\/a>most arrestees<\/a> came straight from federal, state or local custody, and when ICE had to go to the streets, it carefully planned operations — surveilling suspects to learn their routines, sometimes <\/a>for weeks<\/a>and working as a team of agents and creating a pre-enforcement action plan.<\/p>\n
To speed up arrests, however, ICE reportedly eliminated<\/a> the pre-enforcement planning last year as it started targeting areas more than specific people. “It’s hard to fill out a worksheet that just says, ‘Meet in the Home Depot parking lot,’” one former ICE official told NBC News<\/a>. Enforcement went from targeted and planned to indiscriminate and opportunistic, which led to more chaotic interactions.<\/p>\n
Reflecting this lack of planning, both of the immigrants<\/a> shot and killed<\/a> in the past two weeks were not the individuals ICE agents were originally looking to arrest, according to lawmakers who spoke to officials. A similar situation played out in Minnesota<\/a> earlier this year, when ICE agents mistook a DoorDash driver for their target before shooting him after he ran into his home. (That officer was charged after video evidence from a city traffic camera contradicted his account.)<\/p>\n
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Even when pre-arrest surveillance of a specific suspect is conducted, ICE agents appear to relish the car chases and often fail to stop the suspect before they drive away. One Department of Homeland Security supervisor described the attitude<\/a> to The New York Times as “we’re adrenaline junkies who want action, foot chases, car pursuits.”<\/p>\n
In October 2025, for instance, agents waited outside<\/a> the home of Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a TikTok influencer, whom ICE was particularly interested in arresting. But rather than leap immediately into action, they let him get into his car. This led to a vehicle stop<\/a> at which an ICE agent shot Parias, and the bullet ricocheted into a U.S. marshal.<\/p>\n
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On Fox News Tuesday, Homan admitted that there’s no downside. “I hear a lot of noise right now, ‘this will affect ICE arrests.’ It’s not going to,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
Another <\/a>shooting in California in April 2026<\/a> followed the same pattern. ICE did the surveillance but let the suspect get into their car. This appears to have been intentional. In June, surveillance video captured what appears to be a <\/a>targeted ICE arrest<\/a> in Milwaukee, in which officers allowed the suspect <\/a>several minutes<\/a> to get a snack and re-enter his vehicle before the team moved in for the arrest.<\/p>\n
When stops do happen, as a Wall Street Journal investigation found earlier this year<\/a>ICE agents commonly use tactics that place themselves in unnecessary risk: failing to tell drivers to turn off their engines, grabbing cars when they start to move, placing their bodies — rather than vehicles — in the way, and then shooting at uncooperative drivers.<\/p>\n
DHS’ <\/a>use-of-force policy<\/a> already gets most of these issues right. It prohibits officers from “intentionally and unreasonably placing themselves in positions in which they have no alternative to using deadly force.” It bars shooting drivers unless there is an imminent risk of serious bodily harm.<\/p>\n
Outside of a terrorist attack where the car is the weapon, shooting the driver does not lessen the threat; it enhances it. After an ICE agent in Minneapolis shot Renee Good, the car didn’t stop. It accelerated until it crashed. In Maine, ICE officers had to try to grab the car<\/a> on foot to stop it after the injured driver lost control, and the car circled blindly. Eventually, an ICE agent used his vehicle to stop it.<\/p>\n
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ICE’s suspension of most vehicle stops would force agents to spend time learning new tactics, but doing so would have gone a long way to protect agents, targets and bystanders. Rather than a temporary reprieve, in fact, ICE should have made it permanent.<\/p>\n
On Fox News Tuesday, Homan admitted that there’s no downside<\/a>. “I hear a lot of noise right now, ‘this will affect ICE arrests.’ It’s not going to,” he said. “Before he gets into the car, you can arrest him then. You can wait until the vehicle gets to its destination,” he said — unless the target is a violent criminal. He added, “If we can take that 2-ton ‘weapon’ away from them, that’s good.”<\/p>\n
Homan is admitting what the record shows: ICE has been endangering its officers and others for no enforcement benefit. Ending vehicle stops won’t end all the problems, or even all the deaths. But continuing them means more danger for ICE personnel and the public.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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David J. Bier<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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David J. Bier is the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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