NEW YORK, United States (CMC) — Immigration advocates in New York are welcoming as “overdue” the decision of the United States Government to order the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to halt making vehicular stops after ICE agents killed two people at separate traffic stops in recent days.

On July 7, ICE agents killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas and, on Monday, ICE killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.

The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella group of over 200 immigrant and refugee groups in New York State, said Guerrero was the 11th person that ICE agents have shot and killed during US President Donald J Trump’s second term, in addition to 52 people who have died in ICE detention.

“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Guerrero should be alive today,” NYIC President and Chief Executive Officer, Murad Awawdeh, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

“Immigrant communities should not have to live under the constant threat that they will be executed in front of their families by masked, unidentified agents. But across America, reckless and violent ICE agents in unmarked vehicles are chasing down our neighbours, inflicting terror in our communities and all too often taking people’s lives.

“We welcome the development that ICE will pause making traffic stops, because no one is safe when ICE is present. New York State banned all formal agreements between local governments and ICE, and counties doing ICE’s bidding must follow the new law and end their agreements,” Awawdeh said.

He said Congress wrote ICE a blank check, and communities are paying the price, urging lawmakers to cut this funding and chart a path toward ending this rogue agency once and for all.

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Chair, Yvette D Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, extended “deepest condolences” to the families and loved ones of Araujo and Guerrero.

“We stand with their families, community leaders and residents in demanding full, independent investigations and accountability for ICE operations that tragically claimed their lives,” Clarke, who represents the predominantly Caribbean 9th Congressional District in New York, told CMC. “Like so many Americans, we are outraged by what we have witnessed in far too many communities across the country as our neighbours are terrorised and brutalised by ICE and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

She said that the growing presence of immigration enforcement in communities is not about public safety, but about stoking fear.

“We have seen innocent people killed in cold blood by masked federal agents who are funded by American taxpayer dollars, yet believe they are above the law. Any use of deadly force by any law enforcement official must be met with complete transparency, an independent investigation and full public oversight. This is no exception,” Clarke said.

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is seeking re-election this year, said in a statement that she had urged US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin to “cease all non-urgent vehicle stops” by ICE agents.

But Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said that the order for ICE to cease vehicular stops was temporary.

“It’s a short pause just to make sure we’re doing the right thing,” he said, adding that operations continue, arrests are at record numbers and deportations are at record numbers.

On Tuesday, the California-based Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) demanded a “full, independent investigation” into the fatal shooting

David Venturella, ICE’s acting director, said in a statement that Araujo was an “illegal alien” who had “weaponised his vehicle” in trying to run over the ICE agent, who fired at him.

Araujo’s son, Ronaldo Salgado, said on Facebook that his father was “a hardworking Mexican man”.

“My father has been in this country for nearly 35 years, working in construction to provide for myself, my two brother and my mother,” he said.