U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reportedly issued a nationwide directive ordering officers to stop pursuing people in vehicles following two fatal ICE shootings in the past nine days.<\/p>\n
According to NBC News, the directive was confirmed by one current senior Department of Homeland Security official and two former senior DHS officials. <\/p>\n
When KPRC 2 reporter Bryce Newberry asked DHS about the new directive, they sent the following statement: <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets. We will not disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reported order comes one week after ICE agents fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during what they called a targeted enforcement operation in Houston.<\/p>\n
Salgado Araujo was killed on July 7 after federal agents in unmarked vehicles confronted him while he was driving members of his construction crew to a job site in east Houston.<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security has said an ICE agent acted in self-defense after Salgado Araujo allegedly attempted to ram an ICE vehicle and ignored commands to stop.<\/p>\n
The three men who were riding in the van with Salgado Araujo have disputed that account, saying ICE vehicles struck their van and that agents were never in danger of being run over.<\/p>\n
The Harris County District Attorney\u2019s Office is conducting an independent investigation into the shooting and has asked the public to submit any videos or other evidence that could help establish a timeline of what happened.<\/p>\n
Second fatal shooting in Maine<\/p>\n
The reported policy change also follows a fatal ICE shooting Monday in Biddeford, Maine.<\/p>\n
According to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE agents were conducting surveillance during an immigration enforcement operation when they attempted to stop a vehicle leaving the area. DHS said the driver tried to flee, prompting an ICE officer who feared for public safety to fire his weapon, killing the driver.<\/p>\n
Immigrant rights groups have demanded answers following the shooting and organized protests in response.<\/p>\n
Arrests continue to rise<\/p>\n
The two shootings come as the Trump administration continues to expand immigration enforcement efforts.<\/p>\n
According to federal data, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people over five days at the end of June as part of the administration\u2019s mass deportation campaign.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear when the reported no-pursuit directive took effect or whether it will become a permanent nationwide policy. <\/p>\n
DHS has not publicly confirmed the order.<\/p>\n
Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n
More Stories Like This In Our Email Newsletter<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reportedly issued a nationwide directive ordering officers to stop pursuing people in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,1829,131910,59771,3346],"class_list":["post-372757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-ice","tag-ice-shootings","tag-immigration-officers","tag-shootings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}