President Donald Trump says aggressive traffic stops are one of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s most powerful weapons.

A former senior ICE official says the administration’s refusal to equip agents with body cameras is turning those operations into a danger not only for the public—but for the officers carrying them out.

Jason P. Houser, a former ICE chief of staff, delivered the warning Wednesday as the agency faced renewed outrage following two fatal encounters in Maine and Texas.

Neither person killed was reportedly the individual ICE officers had originally been seeking. The officers involved were also not wearing body cameras, according to the account discussed during Houser’s appearance on MS NOW.

For critics, the absence of video creates an immediate accountability crisis.

For Houser, it creates something else as well: a threat to agents who may later have no reliable evidence showing what happened during a rapidly escalating encounter.

“There is no rational reason” ICE officers are not already wearing cameras, Houser said.

The technology, funding and implementation plans have existed for years, he argued. The agency could begin deploying the equipment broadly within weeks rather than treating it as a distant logistical challenge.

“They have the money to do it,” Houser said.

He estimated that ICE could establish a body-camera system within 30, 60 or 90 days, including the digital infrastructure necessary to store footage and protect sensitive personal information.

The warning came after ICE briefly suspended traffic-stop operations amid public fury over the deaths.

But the pause did not last.

Trump intervened publicly with an angry Truth Social post demanding that the agency resume the tactic.

“We CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump wrote.

“Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands.”

That declaration placed the president firmly behind the controversial operations, even as questions mounted about how they were conducted and why officers lacked cameras capable of documenting the encounters.

During the television discussion, anchor Katy Tur pressed Houser on the contradiction.

Congress and the administration have directed substantial funding toward ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol. Yet agents continue entering high-risk situations without equipment routinely used by police departments across the country.

“Why aren’t they wearing body cams?” Tur asked.

Houser said he could not identify a reasonable operational explanation.

Body cameras are commonly framed as tools for public accountability. They can show whether an officer followed procedure, whether a person resisted and how force was used.

But Houser emphasized that the protection works in both directions.

Footage can defend officers against false accusations, preserve evidence and provide investigators with a more accurate record than conflicting witness statements.

“It’s not just important for accountability,” he said. It is also essential “for officer safety.”

Without cameras, agents may be left exposed legally, professionally and physically.

Communities may assume the worst when federal agencies provide only their own description of a fatal encounter. Agents may become the focus of public anger without video evidence capable of supporting their version of events.

The lack of transparency can deepen distrust before an investigation has even begun.

Houser also challenged Trump’s claim that broad traffic stops are a traditional and indispensable part of ICE enforcement.

Vehicle stops have been used in certain fugitive operations and cases involving individuals convicted of crimes, he explained.

But the seemingly random traffic-stop strategy now attracting controversy is different.

Houser compared it to the kind of roadside operation more commonly associated with a local driving-under-the-influence checkpoint than with federal immigration enforcement.

These stops are not normally part of ICE officers’ central tactical “toolkit,” he said.

Trump’s insistence that they represent one of the agency’s most established crime-fighting methods is “factually not true,” according to Houser.

That dispute matters because ICE agents are trained for particular missions.

Immigration enforcement officers may carry out arrests, surveillance and fugitive operations. But stopping vehicles without the planning and intelligence associated with a targeted arrest can produce unpredictable situations.

An officer may not know who is inside.

The driver may not understand why unmarked or plainclothes federal agents are approaching.

Witnesses may begin filming only after an encounter has already escalated.

Without body-camera footage, the most important seconds may never be recorded.

The administration could argue that cameras create privacy concerns, particularly when agents enter homes or interact with vulnerable migrants. Video storage, redaction and public-record policies can also be expensive and complicated.

Houser’s response was that those problems had already been considered.

Plans dating back to the middle of the Biden administration reportedly addressed privacy protections, data systems and broad implementation.

The obstacle, he suggested, is not technical.

It is a policy choice.

That choice has become increasingly difficult to defend after the fatal incidents in Maine and Texas.

Families and communities want to know what happened. Investigators need reliable evidence. Agents themselves deserve protection from situations in which every action becomes a matter of disputed testimony.

Instead, Trump has demanded that traffic stops continue while the administration maintains a system that leaves crucial encounters undocumented.

The president portrays the tactic as essential to fighting crime.

Houser sees a reckless expansion of operations ICE was not traditionally designed to conduct—carried out without one of the most basic modern safeguards.

The result, he warned, places everyone in danger.

The public faces officers without cameras.

The officers face frightened or confused drivers without a complete record of what follows.

And when an encounter ends in death, the country is left arguing over events that technology could have captured from the beginning.

Trump says abandoning traffic stops would benefit criminals.

The former ICE official’s warning is that abandoning transparency may be benefiting no one at all.