A man is led into a vehicle in handcuffs as an ICE agent makes an arrest following a traffic stop made by a Department of Public Safety officer in Mustang Ridge, outside Austin, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (Mikala Compton/The Austin American-Statesman …
President Donald Trump appeared to contradict recent reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would suspend most traffic stops across the country.
The backstory:
Fox News' Bill Melugin said multiple sources have confirmed that officers were told only to do traffic stops for operations targeting the most egregious criminal aliens with serious or violent criminal histories.
The reported policy shift came after a second fatal shooting involving an ICE agent over the past two weeks. On Tuesday, a third person died in an encounter with immigration officers, when a 28-year-old man was hit by a tractor-trailer while fleeing immigration and other officers, authorities said.
What they're saying:
In a post, the president wrote that to remove criminals from the country, "we CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!"
Big picture view:
Hours after Trump’s statement, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote on social media that he and the president want ICE officers "to have all options available to keep them safe while executing our mission." However, Mullin did not explicitly say whether traffic stops would be allowed.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from The Associated Press and previous coverage. This story was reported from Orlando.