Trump pressures ICE to resume traffic stops after agency pulls back

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting at the White House in Washington on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. Trump on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, criticized his administration’s directive to halt Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from conducting most vehicle stops after two fatal shootings, immediately throwing the policy into question a day after it went into effect. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

By MADELEINE NGO and ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS

President Donald Trump earlier this week demanded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers continue to stop vehicles as they seek to detain people in the country without legal status, despite two fatal shootings that led to a temporary halt to the practice just a day before.

Department of Homeland Security officials did not explicitly say whether they were resuming the traffic stops, which they had largely halted after ICE agents shot and killed one person in Houston and another in Biddeford, Maine, in the span of one week. But Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, said in a social media post Wednesday evening that he was “on the same page” with Trump and that they wanted ICE officers to “have all options available to keep them safe” while carrying out the administration’s deportation campaign.

The rapidly shifting policy is part of what has been a recurring pattern as the Trump administration has sought to achieve the president’s goal of mass deportations. As the government’s aggressive tactics have drawn public backlash, Homeland Security officials have scaled back the most visible aspects of their crackdown — only to feel the pressure to ratchet up arrests again.

In a social media post Wednesday, Trump defended the traffic stops and urged ICE to “go back and do your very important job.”

“We CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump wrote. “Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands.”

The president’s comments underscore his determination to achieve his goal of the most deportations in American history, despite the political fallout.

He is being cheered on by hard-line supporters, who demand that he not back away from his pledge.

“They are caught between the MAGA constituents who want mass deportation and the videos, court decisions, public opinion, on the use of force,” said Gil Kerlikowske, a former commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.

Before the president’s directive on traffic stops, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, tried to downplay the potential impact of the pause in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, saying it was a temporary measure to “make sure we’re doing the right thing.”

However, many arrests occur after ICE officers pull over people in their cars, and the pause threatens to hamper the agency’s ability to increase arrests.

The recent shootings, and Trump’s push to keep up deportations, have created a political challenge for Republicans in tough reelection bids.

Some lawmakers had urged Mullin to impose the pause, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican who has supported aspects of the administration’s immigration agenda.

Trump had already been up against dimming public opinion of his immigration crackdown and a drop in support for ICE, particularly after two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis this year. The outrage over their deaths led to fears among Republicans that Trump’s deportation drive could cost them voters in this year’s midterm elections.

After taking the helm of the department this spring, Mullin has tried to strike a softer tone on immigration, vowing to keep the agency out of the headlines and taking a quieter approach to enforcement.

Mullin has pushed for agents to obtain judicial warrants before entering homes and privately expressed skepticism about plans to convert more than a dozen industrial warehouses into immigrant detention centers. That plan was scaled back last month, with ICE planning to off-load many of the warehouses it purchased.

In the spring, the White House also told congressional Republicans to not focus as much of their messaging on “mass deportations,” but rather on their efforts to arrest criminals. At the urging of Trump, the administration tried to rebrand immigration agents as “NICE” officers.

But while the administration tried to change the optics of the enforcement operation, it never relented on its mission for mass deportations.

Starting in late June, the federal immigration officials began ramping up arrests again amid pressure from the White House for more enforcement. Officials detained more than 10,000 people in five days and were told there was a new standard of hitting 2,000 arrests a day, roughly double the rate of earlier this year.

“We do have to strike a balance between enforcing our laws — we don’t want to dehumanize people,” Vice President JD Vance said during an appearance on “The View” last month. “Law enforcement is always inherently not a very pretty process, especially when you’re dealing sometimes with violent people, with people who are resisting arrest.”

The stepped-up enforcement has come as the department has seen a surge in resources, thanks to Trump’s domestic policy measure that he signed into law last summer, which made ICE the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government. The new funds allowed the Department of Homeland Security to pursue an intensive recruitment push to hire new agents, many of whom are now on the streets.