ICE should permanently end vehicle stops

Jul. 15, 2026, 1:16 PM EDT By David J. Bier Following two killings of motorists in two weeks in Maine and Texas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement briefly suspended most vehicle stops to retrain its agents. The suspension implicitly conceded the obvious — ICE could have prevented these deaths — but President Donald Trump quickly overruled the agency, ordering it to resume the stops. The president posted on social media Wednesday that “we cannot give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” But he’s wrong. His own adviser, White House border czar Tom Homan, has admitted that vehicle stops are not an important enforcement tool, and that permanently ending them would better protect ICE agents, their targets and the public. ICE agents appear to