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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 50,000 people in July, the highest monthly total of President Donald Trump’s second term, as the administration expands its mass deportation campaign through traffic stops, local police partnerships and community arrests.
ICE recorded 49,571 arrests in July, a 15% increase from 43,021 in June and a 70% jump from 29,241 in February, according to government data provided to the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA and analyzed by The Associated Press.
The surge shows that the administration has not backed away from its aggressive immigration enforcement agenda. Instead, it has increasingly shifted away from highly publicized raids in major Democratic-led cities toward enforcement tactics that attract less national attention while reaching deeper into local communities.
“The new arrest numbers show the administration didn’t stop the enforcement,” said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports stricter immigration controls.
“They changed the tactics and are, if anything, being more effective,” he said.
ICE arrests surge as enforcement tactics change
The July total represents a dramatic escalation from the months before Trump returned to office.
ICE arrests had hovered around just over 8,000 in the month before Trump’s inauguration, largely involving immigrants already in state or local custody who were transferred to federal immigration authorities.
The numbers climbed rapidly after the administration loosened restrictions on where ICE agents could make arrests and provided the agency with billions of dollars in additional funding.
By December, monthly arrests had surpassed 40,000.
The numbers then fell sharply in February following protests and political backlash after two fatal shootings in Minnesota involving immigrants and federal immigration enforcement.
After several months of relatively little movement, arrests began climbing again in June and reached a new second-term high in July.
The figures are particularly significant because the Department of Homeland Security has largely stopped publicly releasing detailed immigration enforcement data, making information obtained by the Deportation Data Project through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit one of the few windows into ICE’s operations.
Local police become a major force in Trump’s deportation campaign
One of the biggest changes in the administration’s enforcement strategy has been its growing reliance on state and local law enforcement.
Police departments participating in ICE’s 287(g) program accounted for about 6,500 arrests in July, or roughly 13% of the agency’s total arrests.
A year earlier, those partnerships accounted for less than 5% of monthly ICE arrests.
The agreements allow participating state and local officers to perform certain immigration enforcement duties on behalf of the federal government.
The administration has offered financial incentives to encourage more police agencies to participate.
Texas and Florida alone accounted for nearly 20,000 ICE arrests in July, underscoring the importance of state cooperation to Trump’s deportation strategy.
The approach has also brought immigration enforcement into situations that traditionally would not have involved federal immigration authorities.
ICE arrests have increasingly followed routine traffic stops and other interactions between local police and residents.
Most people arrested in July had no criminal conviction
The July data also challenges one of the administration’s central arguments for its immigration crackdown: that ICE is primarily targeting dangerous criminals.
More than half of the people arrested in July had not been convicted of a crime and were not facing criminal charges, according to the data.
Less than one-quarter of those arrested had been convicted of a crime.
About half of the arrests were classified as non-custodial, meaning ICE agents arrested people in their communities rather than taking custody of individuals already being held in local jails or prisons.
That distinction has become increasingly important as the administration has expanded enforcement beyond people with criminal records.
Patricia Quiñonez, a journalist who covers Utah’s Venezuelan immigrant community, said traffic stops have increasingly become a gateway to immigration enforcement.
She said people can be stopped for relatively minor violations before officers begin asking about their immigration status.
“They stop you for whatever reason,” Quiñonez said, citing issues such as expired vehicle tags, tinted windows or driving without a license. “From there, they take advantage of the situation and ask about immigration.”
Quiñonez said people with valid work permits and pending asylum cases have also been arrested and expressed concern that some immigrants are being targeted because of their race.
Trump administration promised quieter enforcement
The surge comes despite promises from Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that the administration would take a less conspicuous approach to immigration enforcement.
During his confirmation hearing, Mullin said he wanted to keep ICE out of the headlines.
But the agency’s arrest numbers show that the underlying strategy has remained focused on dramatically increasing deportations.
Under Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi Noem, ICE and Border Patrol operations in cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis became highly visible political spectacles.
Some operations were promoted through social media videos showing federal agents pursuing immigrants through streets and deploying helicopters and other tactics that drew widespread criticism.
The administration’s newer strategy is less theatrical but potentially broader, relying on local police, traffic enforcement and routine community encounters.
A quieter crackdown with a larger reach
The July figures suggest Trump’s mass deportation campaign is entering a new phase.
Rather than concentrating enforcement primarily in a handful of large cities, ICE is increasingly using partnerships with local authorities to expand its reach across states and communities.
That strategy could make immigration enforcement less visible nationally while making it a more common part of everyday encounters with law enforcement.
For immigrant communities, advocates and local businesses, the shift has already created new uncertainty.
For the Trump administration, however, the record July arrest total offers evidence that its central immigration promise — dramatically increasing enforcement and deportations — remains firmly in place.
And with nearly 50,000 arrests in a single month, the numbers suggest the administration’s quieter approach may be producing a larger enforcement footprint than the highly publicized raids that came before it.
