USA28 September, 20262 min read
Trump Tells Fox ICE Will Arrest Undocumented Immigrants, Despite Mullin Scrutiny
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Trump reaffirmed ICE policy to arrest undocumented immigrants. Leaked ICE leadership call raised questions about prioritizing arrests by criminal history.
ICE guidance sparks backlash
President Donald Trump moved to clear the record after an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership call leaked to media outlets, with some Trump administration officials believing ICE planned to limit arrests of undocumented immigrants to those with criminal histories. Trump told a well-known correspondent at Fox News in a phone call that ICE would continue to arrest anyone in the country illegally, regardless of criminal history.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin faced scrutiny as DHS, which oversees ICE, denied that any directive was issued, while CNN reported that sources said Trump directed anger toward Mullin behind the scenes. A Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN that “We are all focused on delivering on the President’s mission to deport illegal aliens and are all the same page,” and the spokesperson added that “anyone in our country illegally will be arrested and deported.”
Numbers, detention, and politics
ICE activity surged over the summer, with ICE taking around 51,000 people into custody in August, setting a new monthly high under the Trump administration.
ICE also took more than 46,000 people into custody in July, and the CNN account linked the pressure to arrest hundreds of people daily to White House demands.
Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar broke with Trump in a campaign ad ahead of the midterms, pointing to statistics she said show that 50% of the people detained by ICE in July “had no criminal record.”
In southwest Kansas, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall said local law enforcement had not been “given advance notice or the level of cooperation we would expect from ICE’s enforcement and removal operations,” and he added that “there have been mass disruptions to local communities and businesses.”
Where enforcement meets schools
Chalkbeat reported that Democratic lawmakers urged the Department of Homeland Security to revive a policy the agency rescinded in 2025 that limited operations in and around schools and other sensitive locations such as churches.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Chalkbeat, “ICE is not going to schools to make arrests,” and the spokesperson added, “This is just another false narrative to try and demonize our brave ICE law enforcement.”
The Chalkbeat account cited a Sept. 9 incident in the San Diego Unified School District in which ICE agents detained two parents after they had dropped their two children, ages 2 and 5, at an elementary school.
Chalkbeat also described a Sept. 14 episode in Montclair, N.J., when residents said ICE agents detained four people in an area close to an elementary school during student drop-off, and it noted that an Indianapolis school told a local radio station that recent ICE arrests this month drove students to stay home, with attendance dropping below 40% around the time an ICE operation was underway.