Former Border Patrol Commissioner: ICE police tactics “so far outside standard practices, they shock the conscience”
Law enforcement experts are criticizing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tactics that killed a record number of civilians on U.S. streets. Police accountability and immigration enforcement experts say deaths will continue until Congress takes ICE's guns and bans them from making community arrests.
Former U.S. Border Patrol Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske spoke to this recently on NPR’s All Things Considered. In addition to numerous federal law enforcement roles, he formerly led police departments in Seattle and Buffalo.
Commissioner Kerlikowske told NPR that ICE’s community-based enforcement tactics, “are so far outside the standard practices and policies of any professional law enforcement agency that it shocks the conscience.” He went on to explain:
You don't approach a vehicle and make a traffic stop by boxing it in. In law enforcement, that would be called a felony stop. That means that you have probable cause that that person in that car is wanted for a felony, and that's the kind of tactic that you would use. All too often, these same tactics are being used, and they're even not against the target that they were intended. The other thing is that law enforcement officers are trained in communities, rural and suburban and a city, not to get in front of a vehicle, not to put your hands inside a vehicle. And yet, we see repeatedly these ICE agents and Border Patrol agents stand in front of the vehicle.
For months, the Ohio Immigrant Alliance has been pointing out the fact that ICE’s street arrests are endangering the entire community and needlessly costing people their lives. “Immigration laws are about paperwork. They should be enforced in courtrooms and office buildings, like IRS and other civil laws, not the streets of United States communities,” said Lynn Tramonte. “There is no civil law worth killing people over.”
In addition to ICE agents shooting and killing Joan Sebastian in Maine, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas, and Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota while “on the job” — and the murder of Keith Porter in California by an off-duty agent — ICE has caused numerous car crashes that have taken several people’s lives. The death toll includes people being pursued by ICE, as well as other drivers and passengers on the road when ICE initiated the chase, like Dr. Linda Davis of Georgia. The latest occurred just yesterday in Florida.
Dr. Davis was killed after agents pursued someone in a designated “no chase” zone. Some members of the public blame the people ICE was chasing for these (or their own) tragic deaths, but ICE is responsible for creating these dangerous situations — simply to enforce a civil law.
Kerlikowse said, “They haven't been trained to police in an urban environment. The Border Patrol works best on the border or within 25 miles of the border. They have no experience or expertise policing a city. ICE is very much the same way. That is not their training. And frankly, you could put them through weeks of training, and it wouldn't even begin to approximate what a city police officer goes through.”
Lauren Bonds, Executive Director of the National Police Accountability Project and an expert in policing tactics, agrees. “No law enforcement officer is justified in shooting into a vehicle, ever,” she said. “No one deserves to be shot by a federal agent on their way to work, and enforcing a civil law is never more important than a person’s life. The only way to end ICE killings is to take their guns and ban them from enforcing civil laws on our streets. Civil laws should be enforced in courtrooms and office buildings, not on U.S. streets with deadly force.”
OIA’s Tramonte also observed that the fact ICE agents use unmarked cars, wear masks, and sneak up on people while they are out going about their daily lives — instead of obtaining judicial warrants and serving them in an orderly manner — mimics the tactics of criminals and creates a deadly environment in local communities. Watch this video.
“If you are being chased by an unmarked vehicle, you don’t expect it to be a federal agent. You think someone wants to hurt you. You don’t stop; you keep driving and look for a safe place to go,” she said. “In December 2025, ICE initiated a high-speed chase through the streets of Columbus, Ohio. The person they were chasing panicked and jumped from their car; the still-moving vehicle crashed into parked cars. Luckily, no pedestrians were hit. But there’s no justification for tactics like these. ICE is using the tactics of criminals to enforce civil laws, and putting our entire communities at risk.”
Following the killings in Texas and Maine, the federal government announced a “temporary” moratorium on most vehicle stops. “That is nowhere near enough,” said Tramonte. “These needless deaths will continue until Congress freezes ICE’s funds; takes their masks and guns; and puts every single agent on desk duty. We don’t give these extraordinary powers to other civil enforcement officers. They can’t just roam our streets looking for people who might not have paid their taxes, and shoot us if we don’t immediately submit to an interrogation. It would be absurd and deadly to arm IRS agents, and it’s absurd and deadly to arm ICE. It’s up to Congress to finally address this,” she concluded.
