Congress mum as ICE pumps brakes on vehicle stops after Maine shooting

WASHINGTON (CN) — Top lawmakers in Congress had little to say Tuesday as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement barred its agents from stopping vehicles during enforcement operations, just hours after immigration officers were involved in yet another controversial shooting of a person behind the wheel.

But while Republican leaders largely said they’d not been briefed on Monday’s deadly shooting in Maine or ICE’s remarkable policy shift, Democrats argued the move was far from groundbreaking.

The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday afternoon reportedly instructed federal immigration enforcement agents to immediately cease vehicular stops as part of their normal operations. The new policy appeared to be a response to the shooting of 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, early Monday morning. Guerrero — who was not the target of ICE enforcement — was killed behind the wheel of his car after agents tried to stop him from driving away.

A spokesperson for ICE told Courthouse News in a statement that the agency was “always evaluating” its procedures but said it would not “disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics.”

On Capitol Hill, top congressional Republicans were tight-lipped about the Maine shooting and its aftermath. House Speaker Mike Johnson told Courthouse News during a news conference Tuesday morning that he didn’t “know anything” about the high-profile incident.

“I’m a little busy,” he said. “I know there was a tragic shooting. You guys can mock me for not knowing that, but I worked about 22 hours yesterday.”

New York Representative Andrew Garbarino, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told reporters that he hadn’t yet been briefed on ICE’s policy change but that he’d requested such a briefing from Homeland Security. The Republican congressman did not reply to a question about what he planned to ask the agency.

And California Representative Darrell Issa, a top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, argued that ICE’s move to restrict vehicle stops represented a routine reevaluation of agency tactics.

“Every law enforcement agency is constantly evaluating, and every day in America some law enforcement agency determines that they’re either going to do more pursuit or less pursuit,” he told Courthouse News. “Those changing rules have no universal answer — the important thing is they’re succeeding and they believe they can succeed with a reduction in that particular type of pursuit.”

Democrats, for their part, were not convinced ICE’s policy change represented a meaningful shift in immigration enforcement.

Florida Representative Maxwell Frost said the agency’s move was a “step” but worried enforcement operations would continue to pose a threat while Congress continued to fund ICE’s immigration crackdown. And New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that the new directive was a “distraction” from what she saw as unlawful behavior.

“They’re just trying to cover for the fact that what they are doing shouldn’t be allowable in the first place,” said the Democratic congresswoman. “The fact that they’re pausing it is to distract from the fact that in many of these instances they shouldn’t be allowed to do [vehicular stops] in the first place.”

In a statement published Monday evening, the Homeland Security Department said that ICE agents attempted a vehicle stop on “an illegal alien” departing the last known location of a person with a final order of removal. “The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” the agency said.

Maine Senator Angus King said Monday that Guerrero, a Colombian national, was not the intended target of the enforcement operation.

It’s not the first time that federal immigration agents have killed people during vehicular stops in the last year. An ICE agent last week shot and killed a Mexican man during a traffic stop in Houston — Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was similarly not the first target of immigration officers.

Federal agents in January shot and killed a U.S. citizen, Renee Nicole Good, through the windshield of her car during Homeland Security’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. Good’s killing, along with the shooting of American citizen Alex Pretti just days later, were major factors in President Donald Trump’s decision to fire former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this year.

Unlike past ICE shootings, the feds refrained from accusing Guerrero of domestic terrorism or of “weaponizing” his vehicle against immigration agents. Homeland Security’s statement on the shooting also did not say the officer who fired his weapon feared for his life, instead asserting he feared “for public safety.”

DHS has said it is investigating the shooting.

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