ICE officers have killed at least 10 people during immigration enforcement encounters since January 2025, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council, as the White House pushes a daily arrest target of 2,000 and Congress approves record funding without accountability mandates.

Two fatal shootings within six days in July 2026 drew renewed attention. On July 8, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three U.S. citizen children, in Houston's suburbs. Salgado had resided in the country for 35 years and had no criminal convictions, the Council said. He was driving to a construction job site with three co-workers when ICE agents chased his car and opened fire.

Six days later, ICE agents shot and killed a Colombian man in Maine as he drove to work, with his wife and daughter as witnesses. One bystander told Reuters that an ICE vehicle repeatedly rammed into the victim's car before an officer pulled the wounded driver from it. The Department of Homeland Security said the officer fired because he "fear[ed] for public safety," though no body camera footage has been produced to support that account.

Federal agencies appear to be resisting meaningful investigations into the Houston death, the Council reported. The Guardian has tracked at least 10 deaths in immigration enforcement encounters since January 2025, alongside a record number of deaths in immigration detention facilities, according to Human Rights Watch.

What is the White House's arrest target?

The New York Times reported this month that the White House is pushing ICE to increase arrests through a daily quota of 2,000, at times rising to 3,000. In the final five days of June, agents made roughly 10,000 arrests nationwide. The number of people in immigration detention has surged past 60,000.

Just 14 percent of people arrested by the agency in 2025 had any prior criminal charge or conviction for a violent offense, CBS News found. Federal agents have prioritized low-level immigration violations over public safety threats such as child trafficking, drug smuggling, and domestic terrorism, the Council said.

How much funding has Congress approved?

Lawmakers last year provided roughly $170 billion in additional funding for immigration enforcement through 2029. In June, the Senate pushed through approximately $70 billion more, the largest purse in U.S. history for immigration enforcement.

The package carries no guardrails on how agencies conduct arrests. It imposes no requirement for body cameras or basic law enforcement training and places no limits on how agencies spend taxpayer dollars.

What changes is the Council calling for?

The American Immigration Council is urging lawmakers to build a system grounded in four principles: compliance, safety, proportionality, and accountability.

• Compliance: About 13 million undocumented people live in the United States. Many are longtime residents with families, jobs, and community ties. Congress has created no line they can stand in and no easy path to legal status, the Council said.
• Safety: Federal agents should focus on real safety threats, not on construction workers driving to job sites or parents picking up children from school, the Council said. Indiscriminate enforcement undermines cooperation with police and makes communities less safe.
• Proportionality: Detention and deportation cannot serve as the default response to every civil immigration violation. A noncitizen U.S. veteran with a decade-old marijuana offense, for example, could pay a fine rather than face permanent exile, the Council said.
• Accountability: Any death or serious use of force involving immigration agents should automatically trigger an independent investigation outside the Department of Homeland Security. Victims of racial profiling should have the option to pursue legal action.

What happens next?

In the short term, local authorities may pursue independent investigations into the fatal shootings, and some members of Congress may attempt to claw back portions of the new funding. The Council argues those steps cannot substitute for structural reform of the immigration enforcement system.

A recent Supreme Court decision has allowed the administration to remove deportation protections from large groups of immigrants, including Syrians and Haitians, turning thousands into enforcement targets. Republican officials and business leaders have publicly protested the rollback of Temporary Protected Status.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo should have made it to his Houston job site that morning, the Council wrote. Until lawmakers roll back enforcement funding and overhaul the system, communities will continue to face the consequences of an apparatus built to maximize arrests and minimize accountability.