The FBI reportedly will no longer investigate alleged assaults involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Under that policy shift, those cases would be turned over to Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of ICE, meaning the agency would investigate itself, according to The New York Times, which first reported the change.
That change, announced in a written notice to FBI field offices Thursday, comes on the heels of deadly shootings involving ICE agents in Maine and Texas and could reduce scrutiny of any alleged wrongdoing by federal immigration authorities.
During the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, which stretched from December 2025 into this spring, FBI agents investigated a number of alleged assaults against ICE officials and turned up evidence that led prosecutors to drop some cases, CBS News reported.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, on Sunday night denied the policy change.
ICE agent David Brouillette, a 37-year-old whom ICE hired this year, allegedly shot and killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero as he left for work about 7 a.m. on July 13 at the intersection of Pool and Hill streets in Biddeford, where the Colombian immigrant encountered Brouillette and other agents with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division.
Brouillette, whose first ex-wife Ashley Brouillette, who divorced him in 2010, and family identified him as the alleged shooter and spoke with the media about his history of violent behavior, allegedly fired four or five bullets, according to witness testimony and video and audio recordings, when Duran Guerrero allegedly tried to flee.
The ICE agents weren’t equipped with body cameras, for which Congress approved $20 million in funding this year, on top of more than $73 billion appropriated to the agency under the so-called Big Beautiful Bill in 2025, meaning there’s apparently no direct video evidence of what happened between Duran Guerrero and them in the moments before the shooting.
ICE has claimed that Duran Guerrero was in the country illegally and had a final removal order against him. But Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told U.S. Sen. Angus King that Duran Guerrero wasn’t actually the target of the agents’ administrative warrant.
Benjamin Gideon, a prominent and politically connected lawyer representing Duran Guerrero’s family, said during a Thursday press conference that the 25-year-old was in the United States legally. Family and friends who spoke with the Washington Post said Duran Guerrero came here in 2023 to build a better future for his then-infant daughter.
In the aftermath of Duran Guerrero’s death, ICE has temporarily halted most traffic stops. The death of Duran Guerrero, and that of 52-year-old construction worker Lorenzo Araujo in Texas just days earlier, happened during a traffic stop. But President Donald Trump has pressured ICE to reverse course on the policy shift, putting him at odds with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, who faces a heated campaign for reelection in November and pressed Mullin, the Homeland Security secretary, to stop “non-urgent” traffic stops.
Maine’s congressional delegation called for Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to “prioritize” a “comprehensive, transparent, and expedited investigation” into Duran Guerrero’s death.
It’s unclear whether the reported policy shift will affect the FBI’s participation in the investigation into last week’s shooting. The Maine attorney general’s office is conducting its own independent investigation into Duran Guerrero’s death.
This may be at least the 11th fatal shooting involving ICE agents since Trump’s second inauguration. That doesn’t include deaths of those in the agency’s custody. As of July 15, at least 22 people have died in immigration detention centers this year, on top of 33 who died in 2025, according to the National Immigration Project.
Earlier this year, Maine became the latest state to see a surge in ICE agents as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Catch of the Day. That surge was cut short amid a nationwide pushback against the agency’s tactics following the fatal shootings of two protesters in Minneapolis.
Of the nearly 200 detained in Maine during the January ICE surge, only 11 had criminal convictions, undercutting the Trump administration’s claim that it was targeting the “worst of the worst.”