Two ICE Shootings in Six Days Forced a Nationwide Tactical Shift
ICE suspended most vehicle stops nationwide on July 14, 2026, after two fatal shootings in less than a week. The pause applies to non-urgent stops and exempts cases involving targets with serious criminal records, according to law enforcement sources cited by U.S. media.
The most recent death occurred July 13, 2026, in Biddeford, Maine. ICE agents attempted to pull over Joan Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national. DHS says an agent fired because the vehicle attempted to flee and the agent feared for public safety. The agents involved were not wearing body cameras, leaving no independent record of what happened.
The week before, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot by ICE agents in Houston after they attempted a traffic stop. DHS says Salgado Araujo tried to use his van as a weapon. Passengers inside the van have disputed that account.
DHS Policy Bars Deadly Force for Fleeing Suspects Alone
DHS policy prohibits the use of deadly force solely to prevent someone from fleeing unless that person poses a significant threat of death or serious physical harm to the agent or others.
“The person has to pose an imminent threat of harm to use deadly force.”
Paul Hunker, former chief counsel of ICE in Dallas, speaking to NPR, July 14, 2026
Hunker noted that whether a threat is “imminent” is assessed from the officer’s perspective in the moment. With no body camera footage from the Maine shooting, there is currently no way to independently verify whether that standard was met.
The Pause Is Framed as Temporary, Not a Policy Change
White House border adviser Tom Homan told Fox News on July 14, 2026, that the suspension is “a temporary pause” to allow leadership to conduct a short-term review, and that deportations will continue. He said agents have extensive vehicle-stop training and that “every arrest is different.”
Maine Sen. Susan Collins posted on X that she had called DHS Secretary Mullin directly and urged him to “cease all non-urgent vehicle stops.” Sen. Angus King’s office confirmed to NPR that DHS acknowledged the policy shift. DHS declined to describe what the change looks like in practice, telling both NPR and the BBC: “We will not disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics.”
The absence of body cameras in the Maine incident is a direct accountability gap. Without footage, the public must rely entirely on DHS’s own account of both shootings, and in both cases witnesses have offered conflicting versions.
What You Can Do Now
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Call your senators at (202) 224-3121 and demand a mandatory body camera requirement for all ICE field operations. Tell them: “I want ICE agents to wear body cameras during all enforcement actions. Two people are dead and there is no footage.”
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Contact your House representative through house.gov/representatives/find and ask them to support a congressional investigation into both shootings before the temporary pause ends. Homan has signaled the pause will be brief.
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Contact the Senate Homeland Security Committee at (202) 224-4751 and ask the committee to hold an oversight hearing on ICE use-of-force standards and the absence of body camera policies. The committee has jurisdiction over DHS.
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Find your state attorney general at naag.org/find-my-ag and ask them to request an independent review of any ICE enforcement operations in your state. Maine’s AG can open a state-level inquiry into the Biddeford shooting.
Update, July 16, 2026: ICE officers at the July 13 Biddeford, Maine shooting scene were wearing Motorola SVX Video Remote Speaker Microphones, devices that include an embedded camera, according to four ICE officials who reviewed scene images for The Intercept. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had told Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, that the officers were not wearing body cameras. One ICE official told The Intercept the recording function was disabled because “we are currently only using them as mics because of the AXON contract.”
DHS told NPR that half of ICE’s field offices currently have body cameras and the remaining offices will receive them within 60 days. Border czar Tom Homan attributed the gap to a shortage of cameras after units were deployed to Minnesota following the January shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and said “a deployment schedule on the books” is underway.
Congress provided $20 million to fund ICE’s camera program, and a DHS procurement document shows the agency expects to spend more than $100 million over six years on Motorola APX Next radios and accessories, including the SVX mic. DHS blamed multiple government shutdowns for the delay in full deployment. David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, told NPR that DHS has discretionary funds available for cameras and has not acted even after multiple fatal shootings without footage.
Update, July 20, 2026: Two ICE officers fatally shot civilians during traffic stops this month, one in Houston, Texas, and one in Biddeford, Maine, and none of the officers involved were wearing body cameras. The victims, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, and Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, 26, were not the intended targets of either operation, according to PBS NewsHour.
The DHS secretary recommended a pause on vehicular stops after the shootings; President Trump overrode that recommendation and ordered the stops to continue. Congress had previously allocated $20 million specifically for ICE body cameras, and former acting ICE Director John Sandweg, who led the agency from 2013 to 2014, told PBS NewsHour on July 20 that the failure to deploy them is a prioritization issue rather than a financial one.
The officer identified in the Maine shooting, David Brouillette, faces allegations of a history of violence from his ex-wife Ashley Brouillette and several family members, who spoke to the Associated Press. Ashley Brouillette told the AP that Brouillette called her after the shooting and acknowledged killing Duran Guerrero.
(https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/deadly-shootings-by-ice-officers-renew-scrutiny-of-recruitment-and-training), July 20, 2026]
Sources
NPR: ICE Pauses Most Traffic Stops After Two Deadly Shootings BBC News: ICE Told to Halt Most Vehicle Stops After Fatal Shootings in Maine and Texas