Federal data released in late August 2026 shows ICE arrested an average of more than 800 people a day with no criminal record during July, a record for the second term.
July was the first month of the term in which people with only civil immigration violations made up more than half of everyone arrested. Total arrests averaged more than 1,580 a day, also a high for this administration. June set a record with 42,637 arrests; July broke it with 49,138.
That matters against the administration's own stated standard. Officials have repeatedly described the enforcement effort as targeting the “worst of the worst,” a claim this tracker has documented the agency's own data contradicting before. In July the majority of people arrested had no criminal record at all.
The method changed along with the numbers. The surge came without the highly publicised city crackdowns of earlier months. Agents turned instead to traffic stops, airport arrests and arrests at scheduled immigration check-ins, which is to say at appointments people attended voluntarily because the government told them to. Arrests near the border at San Ysidro were more than six times higher in June and July than in preceding months, and doubled in Denver and Newark.
The White House has pushed the agency toward a target of 2,000 arrests a day.