WASHINGTON (AURN News) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has ordered agents to stop initiating most vehicle stops nationwide after agents fatally shot two men during traffic stops in the same week, a sudden reversal of one of the agency’s most commonly used enforcement tactics.
In Biddeford, Maine, agents shot and killed 26-year-old Colombian father Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero after federal officials said he tried to drive away.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said Durán Guerrero was not ICE’s intended target that day, and advocates said he was legally authorized to work in the U.S.
Days earlier in Houston, an ICE officer fatally shot Mexican immigrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a separate vehicle stop. His sons dispute ICE’s account, and no video of the shooting has been released.
Neither officer who fired the fatal shots was wearing a body camera.
The Department of Homeland Security blamed delays in the body camera rollout on back-to-back government shutdowns, which the agency attributed to Democrats.
That explanation comes despite a February pledge to rapidly deploy body cameras to DHS officers nationwide after federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
Click play to listen to the report from AURN White House Correspondent Ebony McMorris. For more news, follow @E_N_McMorris & @aurnonline.
