The White House confirmed that vehicle checkpoints by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will continue to operate throughout the United States, putting an end to any doubts about the continuation of a tactic that has claimed at least three lives in less than two weeks.
The press secretary Karoline Leavitt was responsible for confirming the continuation of vehicle operations, stating that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided verbal guidance to all field offices across the country to maintain the strategy.
"Vehicle checkpoints are ongoing. The Department of Homeland Security has provided verbal guidance to all field offices across the nation. The president and the Secretary of Homeland Security are in agreement: vehicle checkpoints are a necessary tool that ICE agents need to continue their campaign of deporting the most serious illegal criminals in the country," Leavitt stated.
The confirmation comes after a week of high tension marked by three deaths during migration operations.
On July 7, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican who had lived in the United States for nearly 35 years and was the father of three U.S. citizen children, mistaking him for the target of the operation, in Houston, Texas. His family bid him farewell on Thursday during a private funeral with mariachis and rancheras.
On July 13, another agent shot and killed Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian with a valid work permit and Social Security number, and the father of a three-year-old girl, who was also not the target of the operation.
One day later, on July 14, a 28-year-old man died struck by a tractor-trailer in St. Augustine, Florida, while fleeing on foot from ICE agents.
None of the officers involved in the shootings were wearing body cameras at the time of the incidents.
Under public pressure, the DHS issued a memorandum on July 14 temporarily suspending vehicle checkpoints, but the pause lasted less than 48 hours.
President Donald Trump revoked the suspension on July 15 through Truth Social, and on the same day, the DHS canceled the internal memorandum, resuming vehicle detentions with a new requirement: at least one agent per arrest team must wear an active body camera.
Regarding the status of that equipment, Leavitt reported that more than half of the ICE field offices already have body cameras, and the rest will receive them within approximately 60 days, around mid-September.
He attributed the delay to "the decision of the Democrats to shut down the DHS for several weeks."
The DHS approved 20 million dollars to implement the body-worn camera program for ICE agents.
Since the beginning of the mass deportation campaign, at least 10 people have died during immigration operations, of which at least four involved individuals in vehicles.
The mortality rate under ICE custody reached 88.9 deaths per 100,000 detainees in the fiscal year 2026, the highest level in 22 years.
The Venezuelan Jesús Manuel Arenas Silva, 45 years old, died on July 13 while in ICE custody as he was being transported by bus between detention centers in Georgia, raising the number of migrants who have died in custody to 22 so far in 2026.
The agent involved in the shooting in Maine has been suspended, and both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General are investigating the cases in Texas and Maine.
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