TRUMP ORDERS ICE TO RESUME TRAFFIC STOPS AFTER DHS SUSPENSION

President Donald Trump stated on Wednesday that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement must continue conducting traffic stops, reversing a decision made the previous day by the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the practice. Trump made the declaration via social media, stating that traffic stops represented an important crime-fighting tool that could not be abandoned. He added that such a suspension "won't happen on my watch".

The DHS directive to halt traffic stops temporarily came after two fatal shootings by immigration officers within a week. ICE agents shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on 7 July and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine on Monday. According to accounts, both men were unarmed and neither was the intended target of the respective operations. In both cases, the agents involved were not wearing body cameras to record the incidents. Federal officers across the United States had been instructed to stop pulling drivers over on Tuesday following these events.

Trump's statement made no reference to either killing when he countermanded the DHS order. He credited ICE with falling crime rates and repeated a claim that 25,000,000 people crossed the border unchecked under the previous administration. Trump instructed agents to continue sending crime statistics and told officers they are "loved and respected in America". No reassurance was extended to the families of the two men killed during the traffic stops.