U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will be required to wear body cameras during vehicle stops, a move announced by Trump administration border czar Tom Homan. The decision comes in the wake of multiple fatal shootings involving ICE officers in recent weeks.
Homan stated on "Fox & Friends Weekend" that the cameras are intended to "exonerate" officers, allowing the public to see events from their perspective. "They exonerate more law enforcement than they convict, and I want officers to wear body cameras because I want the American people to see what the officers saw when they took that action," Homan said.
The announcement follows two separate fatal shootings by ICE officers within a six-day period. In one incident on July 13, an ICE officer fatally shot a driver in Biddeford, Maine. Six days prior, another ICE officer shot and killed a Mexican national during a traffic stop in Houston, Texas. Neither of these incidents involved body camera footage from the agents.
Homan indicated that funding for the cameras had been delayed by the federal government shutdown earlier in the year, but the devices have now been purchased and training for nationwide deployment is underway. He also mentioned that the agency would temporarily suspend most vehicle stops to review procedures, a decision that President Donald Trump later directed federal immigration agents to resume.
The back-to-back shootings have intensified public scrutiny of ICE tactics and the absence of body cameras. Protests have occurred in Maine, Houston, and Boston in response to the events.
ICE previously conducted a body-camera pilot program in 2015, deploying cameras to agents in Baltimore, Buffalo, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. However, according to a Reuters report from January, the Trump administration sought to reduce funding for the program by 75% last year. In February, following the deaths of two U.S. citizens during an immigration operation in Minnesota, then-Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem stated that the body camera program would be rolled out nationwide as funding became available. Since January 2025, at least seven individuals have been killed during federal immigration enforcement operations.