October Had the Highest Number of Immigration Arrests of Trump’s Second Term

Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection arrested 41,641 people in October, marking the highest number of arrests since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to new ICE data.

The latest publicly available numbers, which the agency hadn’t updated since September, show a surge in arrests as immigration agents unleashed expansive and aggressive operations in Chicago after a lull that followed the previous high of 36,704 arrests in June. So far this month, immigration agents have arrested 20,160 people.

Although the numbers are high, immigration agents still aren’t hitting a goal reportedly set by top officials. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller, the White House top aide behind the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, reportedly pushed in May for ICE to produce 3,000 daily arrests.

ICE has substantially expanded detention. More than 65,000 people are in immigration detention, a 67% increase from the average daily population in detention centers of 38,990 last November. In early October, an ICE spokesperson told NOTUS in a statement that detention bed space had increased to a capacity of about 69,000 people, which is still short of the administration’s goal of expanding that space to hold more than 100,000.

Approximately 26% of people in ICE custody are convicted criminals, whereas most — nearly 31,000 people — don’t have convictions or pending charges, according to the agency. Among people in detention, ICE labeled 6,083 as posing the highest threat level based on recency of criminal and severity of criminal behavior.

The allocation of $170 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and its subagencies from the tax cut and spending package, along with a policy change, in July are fueling the stark increase in immigration enforcement. The Trump administration moved in the summer to declare immigrants who arrived in the country illegally ineligible for bond hearings.

More than a 100 federal judges have ruled against the policy shift, including Trump appointees, and ordered the release of individual immigrants, Politico reported.