Donald Trump on Wednesday defended ICE road checks and said the agency should keep using them, even after the Department of Homeland Security suspended those stops following two deaths in recent enforcement operations. He cast the tactic as one of ICE’s most important tools against crime and rejected the idea that it should be pulled back.
The dispute landed in the middle of a fresh public backlash over the use of force on roads and streets. A 26-year-old Colombian died on Monday after being shot by an ICE agent in Maine, and another man, described as a Mexican who had lived for years in Houston, Texas, died in a separate incident last week. In both cases, agents said they fired because the people tried to flee and they felt in danger.
Trump made his case on Truth Social, writing in Spanish that ICE should not give up one of its most important and effective tools against crime and that such stops would not end under his watch. The Homeland Security Department said it had opened internal investigations into the two deaths, but it did not say when those reviews would be finished or whether the suspension would be temporary, permanent or revised in some narrower form.
That uncertainty matters because the stop-and-check tactic sits inside a broader immigration crackdown and has drawn criticism from people who say ICE goes too far and can harm legal immigrants as well. The deaths have also brought in foreign governments: Gustavo Petro called the killing of the Colombian in Maine an assassination, and Mexico said 17 of its nationals have died during detention and deportation operations since Trump returned to power in 2025.
For now, the immediate fight is between a White House that wants the stops kept alive and a Homeland Security Department that has already pulled them back while it investigates two fatal encounters. If the reviews vindicate the agents, the pressure will be to restore the checks. If they do not, ICE may have to reshape one of its most visible street-level enforcement tools under direct presidential opposition.
