Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin has led his department to once again cave on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportations Tuesday after fatal shootings in Texas and Maine.

In the past week, a Mexican illegal alien was shot in Texas after he “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense,” according to DHS. On Monday, an illegal alien from Colombia, also in his vehicle, was shot under similar circumstances, where “the vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”

In response, Mullin ordered that all ICE officers in the country stop pulling over vehicles in order to do their jobs. The method of pulling over vehicles is one of the most effective and preferred tools for ICE officers, as at-home arrests increase the possibility of danger with access to weapons, according to the Daily Wire, which first reported the directive. At-home arrests also require a judicial warrant, whereas traffic stops do not.

In other words, Mullin’s caving means more ICE agents will be put at risk while fewer deportations will be possible.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, posted that she had “urged [Mullin] to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops.”

Mullin is now the second DHS secretary in President Donald Trump’s second term to cave to the mob on the promise of mass deportations after noncompliance from protesters or subjects turned unexpectedly deadly. But the blame for every last death of this sort should be placed at the feet of Democrats, who insist that these encounters turn into fatal confrontations.

Illegal aliens are told to resist police and refuse to comply with lawful orders of ICE agents, as The Federalist witnessed firsthand in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Advanced networks of protesters conduct dangerous operations to forcibly stop the arrest of illegal aliens.

Agitation in Minneapolis also saw DHS cave, standing down and pulling officers out of the area. It was a uniform surrender that resulted in the ousting of former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commander-At-Large Gregory Bovino, who has demonstrated his drive to conduct true mass deportations, and a tactical victory for Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., and Democrat Mayor Jacob Frey, both of whom encouraged the anarchy to begin with.

Illegals and the left are purposefully engaging in extremely dangerous behavior, but their resistance cannot be rewarded by capitulation from the federal government. There are far too many illegal aliens in the country, and far too few deportations thus far, to allow militant leftists to thwart the central promise of the Trump election. In November, the number of deportations required to fulfill the promise would have been 1 million per month, as The Federalist noted, but the true numbers are only in the low, single-digit millions overall.

[READ: We Need To Deport 1 Million Illegal Immigrants A Month]

In contrast to Collins’ statement, every illegal alien — regardless of whether he has committed a crime in addition to being in the country illegally — must be deported immediately.

The problem is the apparent lack of urgency. Halting one of the primary ICE enforcement tools across the board is a setback that the Trump administration (and the voters who put it in power) must not tolerate.

Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. As an investigative journalist, he previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.