‘We’re turning up the heat on the streets’: DHS Secretary Mullin vows to ramp up ICE enforcement days after two men were fatally shot by agents

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said federal immigration enforcement will continue and intensify, even as the agency faces public scrutiny over two fatal shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. When asked how the agency plans to handle accountability for officers who violate use-of-force policies, Mullin said, according to Forbes,”we’re turning up the heat on the streets.” 

On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was fatally shot in Houston. Joan Sebastian Duran Guerrero was then shot and killed in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday. According to the Department of Homeland Security, neither man was the intended target of the enforcement operations. Duran Guerrero was a Colombian national with work authorization, and Araujo was a Mexican national who had lived in the United States for 35 years and ran a business.

Following the shootings, the agency had initially considered pausing traffic stops, but President Donald Trump reversed that decision after facing pressure from his base. Mullin, addressing the question of accountability at the press conference, said, “everybody will be held accountable, I don’t pick and choose which laws I’m going to enforce, I enforce our nation’s laws, that means I’ll enforce it with our own agency and I’ll enforce it with the criminals on the streets.” 

DHS claims 250,000 non-citizens are registered to vote across four states, while announcing a 30-day election security plan

The press conference had originally been called to discuss new election security measures, following a speech President Trump delivered on Thursday in which he raised concerns about vulnerabilities in the American voting system. 

As part of that effort, Mullin announced that the cybersecurity division of the Department of Homeland Security will release a plan to strengthen election infrastructure within the next 30 days. He also claimed the agency had identified 250,000 non-U.S. citizens registered to vote across California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, though he did not provide details on how those figures were verified.

Mullin emphasized the administration’s intent to prosecute anyone found to have voted illegally, stating, “If you’re illegal and attempted to vote or you tried to vote illegally for someone else, we will find you and we will charge you.” 

Large claims of noncitizen voter registration have, in past investigations, frequently been traced back to incomplete, outdated, or improperly matched data that may incorrectly identify eligible citizens as noncitizens. Mullin did not address how the agency accounted for those possibilities.

President Trump has also reiterated his support for the SAVE Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship in order to vote. The legislation currently does not have enough support in the Senate to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. 

During his Thursday address, Trump also raised concerns about foreign interference, specifically naming China. Similar concerns about federal tactics have led to policy shifts, like the resumption of traffic stops.

However, the declassified documents Trump released alongside that address did not contain new evidence that would change existing intelligence assessments on the matter. The administration has made both immigration enforcement and election security central priorities in recent weeks, with Mullin’s July 17 press conference touching on both issues in the same appearance. The two policy areas were addressed together without the agency drawing a direct connection between them.

The fatal shootings of Araujo and Duran Guerrero have drawn public attention to how ICE agents are trained and held accountable when enforcement operations result in the death of a bystander or someone who was not the intended target. 

Mullin did not outline specific steps the agency plans to take in reviewing either shooting, beyond his general statement that everyone within the agency will be held accountable. Similar accountability questions have recently focused on why ICE agents lacked body cameras during fatal shootings.