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ICE arrests hit record
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 49,571 people in July, the highest single monthly arrest total during the second Trump administration, according to figures analyzed by The Associated Press.
“The July arrest tally of 49,571 marks a 15% jump from 43,021 arrests a month earlier”
The July tally marked a 15% jump from 43,021 arrests a month earlier and a 70% increase from 29,241 in February, in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s enforcement surge in Minnesota.
Newer data provided by ICE to the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project and analyzed by The Associated Press also showed that immigration arrests the month before Trump entered office hovered a little over 8,000.
The increase was attributed to new tactics and the agency’s expansion, with the shift described as moving away from high-profile operations in major cities to arrests during vehicle checks and with assistance from local and state law enforcement agencies.
Tactics, states, and partners
Texas and Florida accounted for nearly 20,000 of the July arrests, and both states leaned heavily into cooperation agreements with ICE called 287g agreements, which allow local and state law enforcement to operate as arms of federal immigration enforcement.
The Deportation Data Project data analyzed by The Associated Press also showed that ICE made arrests at traffic stops and increasingly relied on state and local law enforcement partners.
In Florida’s Key West, the AP reported that the manager at the Half Shell Raw Bar, Bobby Kuchinsky, said a 36-year-old asylum seeker who fled Haiti in 2017 after receiving death threats was arrested by local police and turned over to ICE.
Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies said the administration “didn’t stop the enforcement,” adding that “They changed the tactics and are, if anything, being more effective.”
Detention totals and political stakes
Beyond monthly arrests, The Marshall Project reported that since Trump’s inauguration last year, ICE has detained over 610,000 people, describing it as “more than the population of Atlanta, Baltimore, Milwaukee or the entire state of Wyoming.”
“ICE has detained over 610,000 people — more than the population of Atlanta”
The same report said that last year, more than 270,000 people spent at least a week detained, surpassing any other year since 2012, the earliest in the Deportation Data Project’s archive.
TeleSUR said the White House is pushing to reach one million deportations per year and reported that from October 1, 2025 to September 2026, the current fiscal year totals 368,135 detentions.
TeleSUR also cited a DHS operation in Maryland and Virginia carried out between August 1 and 14 that ended with more than 1,300 undocumented immigrants detained, while noting that the detentions were achieved through sanctuary ordinances in those states.