Every U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest team will have at least one law enforcement officer equipped with a body-worn camera going forward, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday, after two fatal shootings by agents who didn’t have cameras.
“Ensuring all of our ICE law enforcement officers have body cameras nationwide is a top priority for DHS,” the department said in a statement, pointing to an increase in assaults against immigration agents. “This is especially needed because the media and sanctuary politicians consistently spread smears about our law enforcement.”
The move comes after a Mexican man was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Houston last week, and six days later, an agent shot and killed a Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine. In both cases, the immigration personnel involved in the shootings were not wearing body cameras.
Shortly after the Houston shooting, DHS said body cameras had been deployed to more than half of ICE’s field offices, and the remaining offices were set to receive them within 60 days.
The agency blamed the incomplete rollout on a monthslong lapse in DHS funding during the partial government shutdown earlier this year. A DHS spokesperson said the officers in Houston “had not been issued body-worn cameras due to back-to-back Democrat shutdowns.”
Prior to the shutdown, the Trump administration had initially proposed cutting funding and staffing for ICE’s body-worn camera program. Congress ultimately approved $20 million in extra funding for DHS body cameras as part of a bill to end the partial government shutdown in April.
In February, after a pair of fatal shootings by immigration agents in Minneapolis, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the agency would “rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country” as funding became available.
Democratic lawmakers have criticized DHS’s slow rollout of body cameras. Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who represents the Houston area, argued last week that DHS has plenty of money to deploy cameras at a more rapid clip, both in the April funding bill and in last year’s “big, beautiful bill,” which included billions of dollars for immigration agencies.
Garcia said Acting ICE Director David Venturella assured her in a recent phone call that all agents in the field will have access to body cameras by the end of July.
“Trust me, I will hold him to it,” Garcia said.
The shootings in Maine and Texas have drawn renewed scrutiny to ICE’s practices. In both cases, DHS has said the men who were shot were in the U.S. illegally but have acknowledged they were not the intended targets of the immigration operations. Both men were also shot during attempted vehicle stops. In the Houston shooting, DHS has accused the man of weaponizing his vehicle, which family members have disputed.
ICE agents have been instructed to immediately suspend most vehicle stops during enforcement operations nationwide, except in cases involving serious criminal targets, multiple sources told CBS News Tuesday. It is a temporary pause while officers receive more training.