ICE arrests jumped to nearly 50,000 in July, the highest monthly total of Trump’s second term

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 50,000 people during July, the highest single monthly arrest total during the second Trump administration, according to new figures.

The spike in immigration arrests shows that the administration has continued to advance its mass deportations agenda despite a shift in approach earlier this year from high-profile operations in large American cities that sparked a public outcry to arrests that have garnered less attention but have nonetheless been disruptive.

The July arrest tally of 49,571 marks 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, according to government data that was provided by ICE to the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project and analyzed by The Associated Press.

As part of the surging arrest numbers over recent weeks, ICE officers have made arrests at traffic stops. They've increasingly relied on state and local law enforcement partners who are assuming immigration enforcement duties. And they have started to arrest people from Haiti who've seen their protections from deportation stripped away.

The new arrest numbers show the administration “didn’t stop the enforcement,” said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for more immigration restrictions.

“They changed the tactics and are, if anything, being more effective.”

Immigration arrests the month before Trump entered office hovered a little over 8,000 a figure largely made up of immigrants transferred from city or state jails and prisons and turned over to ICE to remove from the country. During Trump’s first year in office the numbers started climbing as the administration loosened restrictions on where and who ICE could arrest while it also infused the agency with billions of dollars.

By December, the number of arrests jumped to more than 40,177, according to the data, which was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

In the aftermath of two fatal shootings in Minnesota in January that sparked protests and an uproar from Democratic lawmakers, arrests began to fall in February. After remaining stagnant for months, the numbers surged in June.

Texas and Florida accounted for nearly 20,000 of the July arrests, in a sign of how important those states have become to the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. Both states have leaned heavily into cooperation agreements with ICE called 287g agreements that allow local and state law enforcement to essentially operate as arms of federal immigration enforcement.

In his confirmation hearing earlier this year, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin pledged to keep ICE out of the headlines, suggesting that the administration’s immigration crackdown might take a softer approach. But his tenure has been marred by a number of fatal shootings of immigrants in encounters with ICE officers. And the figures show Mullin hasn’t shifted the agency from President Donald Trump’s vision for mass deportations.

Under Mullin's predecessor, Kristi Noem, immigration enforcement was often characterized by high-profile operations that targeted specific Democratic cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. Operations often led by former Border Patrol agent Greg Bovino were blasted out on social media videos showing officers bursting out of moving vans to chase people or rappelling from helicopters onto apartment rooftops.

But Krikorian said those tactics were “provoking a lot of ordinary people, turning them off even if they liked the idea of the immigration law being enforced."

The spike in arrests comes as the agency, infused with billions of dollars last summer by Congress, has also hired 12,000 new deportation officers and investigative agents.

Patricia Quiñonez, a journalist at Utahlozanos, which covers the Venezuelan immigrant community in Utah, said immigration arrests during traffic stops have increased sharply in recent months.

“They stop you for whatever reason — for example, you don’t have a drivers’ license, your vehicle tags are expired, your windows are more tinted than what is allowed. From there, they take advantage of the situation and ask about immigration.”

People with valid work permits and pending asylum claims are among those arrested, said Quiñonez, who believes they are being targeted by race.

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