(Headline USA) President Donald Trump wants Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to keep pulling over vehicles, signaling his opposition Wednesday to plans announced just a day earlier to suspend most traffic stops.
It’s not clear whether ICE will quickly reverse course and resume most stops, which have been a key tool in Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown.
Ending those stops, Trump wrote, would be “playing right into the criminal’s hands.”
“We CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump wrote Wednesday on his social media site.
Hours after Trump made his views known, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin issued his own statement saying people illegally in the country would be “arrested and deported wherever they are.” While Mullin didn’t directly say whether ICE officers will be allowed to carry out traffic stops, he later said in a statement that he and Trump “are on the same page,” and that they want ICE officers “to have all options available to keep them safe while executing our mission.”
Three people died while fleeing federal officers within a week. In Florida, a 28-year-old man was killed Tuesday after he was hit by a tractor trailer while running from immigration and other federal officers, authorities said.
Before that, two runaway motorists were shot and killed by ICE officers — one in Texas last week and another in Maine on Monday.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
