On July 15 President Trump reversed the July 14 directive to halt traffic stops by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This reversal was announced by President Trump in a post on Truth Social stating, “[W]e 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!” The president continued, “Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands.” Trump wrote that ICE officers should be “judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job.” He added that any wavering on this commitment “won’t happen on my watch.”
Lauren Bonds of the National Police Accountability Project is quoted in the media calling the July 13 ICE killing in Maine of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero an “extrajudicial public execution,” and called on Congress to pause all funding for ICE and restrict its tactics and its jurisdictions. Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights told The Guardian that the ICE killing in Maine was “state violence with the direct intent of terrorizing communities through fear, intimidation, and deadly violence.”
