ICE accelerates immigration arrests across US to 1,400 a day

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is ramping up immigration arrests, ending a spring lull that followed the shooting deaths of two US citizens by federal agents.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made 16,213 arrests during the first 11 days of July for a daily average of more than 1,400, according to federal records. That came after a daily average of more than 1,300 in June, when the monthly total of almost 40,000 set a record for President Donald Trump’s second term.

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Mullin has deemphasized concentrated enforcement surges such as those carried out in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, where immigration agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. The new approach is more spread out but it has again led to killings. This month, federal authorities shot two immigrant men dead: one in Houston and another in Maine.

“It all adds up to even more than they were doing before,” said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “We are seeing behavior that is demonstrably similar to what we saw in Los Angeles, in Chicago and Minneapolis. But it’s diffuse and popping up in Maine at the same time they are popping up in Houston.”

The January killings prompted nationwide protests as Democratic lawmakers and immigrant-rights advocates assailed what they described as indiscriminate arrests and cases of mistaken identity. A standoff erupted in Congress over ICE funding, and the agency scaled back operations in the Minneapolis area. ICE hasn’t conducted a similar large-scale operation in an individual city since.

But the most recent shootings have spurred renewed criticism of ICE and Trump’s broader immigration crackdown.

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Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican citizen who had been living in the US for more than three decades, was shot and killed on July 7 when ICE agents tried to stop his van in Houston. Joan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian man, was shot dead less than a week later during a traffic stop in Biddeford, Maine.

Federal officials have since said the two men weren’t the intended targets of arrest operations. But the government has defended the shootings as necessary to protect immigration agents and the public. Mullin briefly halted vehicle stops by ICE but the suspension was overruled by Trump.

While the volume of arrests has increased dramatically in recent weeks, the pace remains far below Trump’s goal of more than 1 million arrests and deportations a year. Immigration hardliners are calling for higher numbers.

“The numbers should be through the roof,” said Mike Howell, a visiting fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who last year publicly criticized the Trump administration for what he called “fake” deportation statistics. “It needs to be two commas by now in the removal numbers.”

Howell urged immigration officials to step up worksite enforcement to weaken what he and others have described as a magnet for illegal immigration.

For now, the ranks of ICE agents have swelled due to a hiring spree funded by last year’s massive Republican spending bill. One person who has been briefed on the latest arrest operations described the effort as “high tempo, high output.”

Mullin has repeatedly defended ICE’s actions and warned foreigners in the country illegally to leave on their own.

“Our #1 goal is to keep our officers safe and get criminals OFF our streets,” Mullin wrote earlier this month in a post on X. “Illegal aliens will be arrested and deported wherever they are. If you are here illegally, LEAVE NOW.”