ICE Arrests Jumped to Nearly 50,000 in July, Highest Total in Trump’s 2nd Term: Data

Figures for July show that the Trump administration arrested the highest number of illegal immigrants during its second term, averaging nearly 1,600 per day.

Data released by the U.S. government to the Deportation Data Project, managed by the University of California–Los Angeles and the University of California–Berkeley show that 49,571 illegal immigrants were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month.

The arrest total for July marks around a 15 percent increase from the 43,021 ICE arrests tallied a month before and a roughly 70 percent increase from February’s figures, following two high-profile ICE-related shooting deaths in Minneapolis during the previous month, according to the data. It’s also a roughly 22 percent increase over the 40,000 or so arrests recorded in December 2025.

The data, which was updated on Aug. 21, show there were 41,786 arrests with detentions across the United States in July, averaging out to around 1,347 per day.

In the aftermath of two fatal shootings involving immigration enforcement agents in Minnesota in January that sparked protests and an uproar from Democratic lawmakers, arrests began to fall in February. After months of stagnation, the arrest and deportation numbers surged in June and again in July.

Before President Donald Trump took office a second time in early 2025, immigration-related arrests for December and November 2024 stood at around 8,200 and 8,600, respectively. As Trump took office in January 2025, arrests increased to more than 12,000 per month.

In his confirmation hearing earlier this year, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that he wants to keep ICE out of the headlines, suggesting that the administration’s mass deportation agenda could take a softer approach.

Under Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi Noem, immigration enforcement was often characterized by high-profile operations that targeted specific Democratic cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis. Officers were seen on social media videos bursting out of moving vans to chase people or rappelling from helicopters onto apartment rooftops.

After Mullin took over, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE have continued to publish news releases highlighting the agency’s work to arrest and deport illegal immigrants with criminal records, including this week.

On Tuesday, DHS said that ICE arrested the “worst of the worst” in recent operations, including targeting individuals convicted of murder, domestic violence, robbery, drug manufacturing, child abuse, and more.

ICE and DHS also announced that more than 1,300 illegal immigrants were arrested in a sting across Virginia and Maryland between Aug. 1 and Aug. 14, with Mullin saying in a statement that agents are working to remove dangerous individuals in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

“They arrested sexual assailants, kidnappers, drunk drivers, robbers, and gang members,” he said, criticizing officials who champion “sanctuary” policies that preclude local officials from working with ICE in Maryland and Virginia.

Aside from mass deportations, the Trump administration has increased restrictions on legal immigration to the United States. An official told The Epoch Times on Tuesday that the Department of State also paused visa appointments worldwide due to a global training initiative.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.