MaddowBlog-Trump demands additional ICE traffic stops, despite his own administration's new policy

[LetMyPeopleVote]

On Tuesday, the administration took steps to back off ICE vehicle stops. On Wednesday, the president personally rejected the change.

After an ICE agent fatally shot a man in Maine, the Department of Homeland Security took steps to back off ICE vehicle stops.

Less than one day later, Trump personally rejected the change.

Too often with these guys, the right hand too doesn’t know what the even-further-to-the-right hand is doing.

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-07-15T13:06:51.468Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-ice-traffic-stops-maine-shooting-collins

After months of controversy surrounding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its tactics, things took a brutal turn for the worse this week in Maine, where an ICE officer fatally shot Johan Sebastián Guerrero, a Colombian man authorized to work in the U.S. who was also father of a 3-year-old girl. The developments came just a week after a different ICE officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop in Houston.....

The answer, evidently, was less than a day. On Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump published an unexpected statement to his social media platform that read, in part:

[W]e must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands. The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch.

Right off the bat, the idea that ICE traffic stops are one of the administration’s “most important and effective Crime Fighting tools” is highly dubious, and if the White House has evidence to support the claim, it has kept the proof well hidden.

What’s more, with Collins’ position in mind, it’s not just “radical” leftists who have supported swift changes to ICE enforcement tactics.

But just as jarring is that Trump is now contradicting his own administration, raising questions about who is whispering in the president’s ear, and why in the current executive branch the right hand too often doesn’t seem to know what the even-further-to-the-right hand is doing.