Two Fatal ICE Shootings in a Week Raise Questions About Body Cams
Newsweek · C · trust 57/100
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Federal immigration agents fatally shot two immigrants in the past seven days, but footage of both incidents remains patchy , in part because officers were not equipped with body-worn cameras, despite millions in funding for the kit.
While many police departments across the United States require body-worn cameras, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) have largely lacked the technology, leading to concerns from lawmakers, attorneys, and advocates that there is a lack of transparency when it comes to how ICE agents operate.
After the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January by federal agents, one of whom was an ICE agent, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem promised all officers could receive the equipment. Months later, with two more fatal shootings connected to ICE, calls are rising again for the cameras to be rolled out.
"Body-worn cameras for ICE are an essential tool for uncovering the truth and for achieving even a small and insufficient measure of accountability," Lucas Guttentag, who runs the Immigration Policy Tracking Project and is a professor at Stanford Law, told Newsweek .
"DHS officials and ICE officers have lost all credibility. There seems to be little interest in training or in preventing abuses before they occur."
ICE has been rolling out body-worn cameras for some years. In May 2022, former President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling for federal law enforcement to expand the use of body-worn cameras and improve accountability.
In 2024, some ICE agents started receiving the kit, but this effort was rolled back slightly in the first months of the Trump administration when the agency's budget was stretched thin. A memo in February 2025 acknowledged they were useful in daily operations.
Following several high-profile incidents, including the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, DHS leadership announced plans to deploy cameras more broadly across immigration enforcement operations, but that program has not come to full fruition.
On Monday, a 26-year-old Colombian man was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Biddeford, Maine, after DHS said he tried to flee the scene of an enforcement operation. Agents were not wearing body-worn cameras.
Another fatal shooting in Houston, Texas, on July 7, in which Lorenzo Salgado Araujo died , also involved agents who were not equipped with the recording devices, making it difficult to verify the official version of events DHS provided.
When Newsweek asked DHS why not all ICE agents were wearing cameras, despite $20 million in funding for the kit, a spokesperson said the Democratic Party was to blame.
“The officers involved in the incidents in Maine and Houston had not been issued body-worn cameras due to back-to-back Democrat shutdowns. The process of purchasing and issuing body-worn cameras to all of our ICE field offices was interrupted by the Democrats multiple government shutdowns," the spokesperson said. "Body cameras have been deployed to more than half the field offices with the remaining half to receive them in the next 60 days."
The spokesperson also said that the cameras were a priority for DHS due to an increase in assaults against federal agents. The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that ICE and CBP agents have seen a spike in violence directed toward them, with the weaponization of vehicles against them a common reason given for agents firing their weapons in fatal shootings.
“Body cameras are an indispensable law-enforcement tool. The public rightly views them as essential to transparency and accountability, but the footage also protects officers from false or misleading allegations of misconduct, perhaps more than it exposes actual wrongdoing," Jason C. Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, told Newsweek .
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced in early 2026 that DHS would "rapidly acquire and deploy" body cameras to officers nationwide after controversial shootings involving immigration enforcement personnel in Minneapolis. She described the effort as the beginning of a nationwide rollout as funding became available.
In January 2026, House appropriators discussed making the funding explicit so DHS would be required to spend the money on body-camera acquisition rather than other purposes. Representative Mark Amodei, the Republican leading House negotiations on DHS funding, said lawmakers intended to provide funding with language making clear that it was for body cameras, per Politico.
Congress specifically appropriated $20 million for body cameras for immigration enforcement agencies, including ICE. Lawmakers from both parties have highlighted that funding in debates over enforcement accountability, including Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, who has come under scrutiny following the shooting.
"In April, measures that I authored in the Homeland Security funding bill became law, including $20 million for expanded use of body-worn cameras, $2 million for de-escalation training, and a 17% increase in the independent Office of Inspector General’s budget to investigate matters such as this shooting," Collins posted on X Tuesday afternoon, before also blaming Democrats for the delay in the rollout.
Johnson told Newsweek that DHS needed to move quickly to ensure the equipment and training were given to all agents.
"It should also adopt a clear policy requiring the timely release of footage, subject only to legitimate safety, privacy, and investigative concerns," Johnson said. "Doing so would strengthen public confidence, improve accountability, and ensure that claims of misconduct are evaluated against objective evidence.”
Texas Democratic Representative Sylvia Garcia has been among the most vocal critics of the…
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