AOC Rips Trump for ICE's Deadly Traffic Stops Amidst Immigrant Shootings
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) unleashed a blistering attack on President Donald Trump for his decision to maintain U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement traffic stops, following the brutal killings of two immigrants by agents in a single week.
Trump announced Wednesday that ICE would continue its controversial traffic stops, bowing to pressure from MAGA supporters who opposed any policy changes. He reaffirmed that mass deportations remain a top priority.
“In order to do this, we 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,” he declared on Truth Social.
This announcement followed the shocking deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas, and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, who was killed in front of his three-year-old daughter.
“This is the guy that said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and people would still support him,” Ocasio-Cortez stated. “And now he has an agency shooting people out in the street. And at this point, it's practically a campaign promise from this guy.”
The recent killings come on the heels of a fierce battle over funding for the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year. Democrats resisted funding after an ICE official shot and killed Renee Good, while Customs and Border Protection agents fatally shot another protester, Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis.
After Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was fired in March, her successor Markwayne Mullin claimed at his confirmation hearing that he aimed to eliminate the controversies that plagued the department under Noem's leadership.
Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that the chaos was predictable given Trump's explicit campaign promises centered around mass deportations.
“I think oftentimes when we see an institution, the outcome of that institution when it's repeated and sustained and reproduced, oftentimes ends up being either overtly or subvertly the purpose of it,” she remarked. “And this administration campaigned on cruelty and violence against immigrants, and that's what they're doing.”
Ocasio-Cortez's outrage is echoed by Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), who delivered a scathing floor speech condemning ICE on Tuesday.
“When he took his position Secretary Mullin said that his goal was to get the department off the front page of the news,” Magaziner said. “Well, you're back on the goddamn front page now with two innocent people gunned down in broad daylight.”
Magaziner expressed that if Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives, they should reclaim the increased funding Republicans allocated to ICE in last year's “One Big, Beautiful Bill” legislation signed by Trump.
“Congress has given ICE billions and billions of dollars that the administration has used to invade American cities, to kill American citizens and others,” he stated. “They are hiring people with inadequate training, inadequate oversight, they're not using their body cameras. They're not enforcing any sort of discipline.”
Some Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins, have claimed they implemented oversight measures like body cameras for federal agents, but Democrats dismissed these efforts as insufficient.
Magaziner concluded: “I think that a lot of that money would be better spent on things that will actually improve the lives of the American people and make the American people safer.”
