A man was struck and killed by a tractor trailer Tuesday while he attempted to escape an encounter with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in north Florida, authorities said.
A day later, President Donald Trump announced he wants ICE agents to continue pulling over vehicles to perform traffic stops despite a recent string of deaths during ICE stops across the country.
The Florida death, which occurred in the St. Augustine area early Tuesday, was the third high-profile fatality involving ICE agent encounters across the U.S. roughly in the past week. It was at least the 10th death at the hands of immigration enforcement since President Trump’s mass deportation overhaul launched last year.
Florida Highway Patrol said the 28-year-old was in a vehicle with three others who stopped in a gas station and convenience store in St. Augustine before 7 a.m. During an encounter with Homeland Security Investigations and ICE, the individuals attempted to run from the scene.
The victim ran across a busy road and was hit. He died at the scene.
Officials said it wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the encounter and have not unveiled the victim’s immigration status.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday, “The Department of Homeland Security confirmed it had conducted an operation and said the Florida Highway Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations were “investigating an incident resulting in the death of a Mexican national,” in an emailed statement.
Prior to the St. Augustine fatality, an ICE agent shot and killed a Colombian driver in Maine Monday and another shot and killed a motorist in Houston the week prior. These are some of the latest deaths at the hands of ICE officers in a long string of incidents dating back to when officers killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota last winter — two extremely high-profile and highly protested deaths.
Despite the alleged intent to curb these deaths after the past week’s deadly shootings, Trump made his position clear that the traffic stops should continue. It’s not clear whether the traffic stops will in fact continue or not.
“We CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump wrote Wednesday on his social media site.
Just hours after Trump posted about his opposition to halting traffic stops, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin released a statement noting that people in the U.S. illegally would be “arrested and deported wherever they are,” per PBS. He has not said whether ICE agents will be allowed to carry out traffic stops moving forward.
