ICE Sets New Record with Monthly Arrests

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 49,571 people in July 2026, the highest monthly figure of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to government data analyzed by the Associated Press.

That is a 15 percent increase from 43,021 in June and a 70 percent jump from 29,241 in February.

February followed an enforcement surge in Minnesota earlier in the year. The analysis drew on data ICE provided to the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project through a FOIA lawsuit.

In the month before Trump took office in January 2025, monthly arrests hovered a little over 8,000. Those cases were largely transfers from local jails.

During the first year of the second term, restrictions on where and whom ICE could target were loosened. The agency also received substantial new funding in 2025 and hired 12,000 additional agents. By December 2025, monthly arrests exceeded 40,177.

Totals dipped toward 30,000 earlier this year after two far-left activists were shot while attacking ICE agents in Minneapolis. Numbers held for several months, then climbed above 43,000 in June and to 49,571 in July.

The increase came as the agency shifted away from high-profile city operations toward lower-visibility work that still produced arrests.

Texas and Florida accounted for nearly 20,000 of the July arrests. Both states have expanded 287(g) agreements that let local officers work with ICE.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has described the approach as lower visibility. “Our arrests are on track, our deportations are way up, and we’re going to continue to go after the worst of the worst,” he said. “That’s our focus. We’re trying to get the criminals off our streets.”

Separate reporting based on internal figures put July book-ins above 46,000, or about 1,500 people a day entering custody. Detention populations neared 68,000 in early August.