On July 1, 2026, the New York Times reported, based on internal documents and interviews with federal officials, that the Trump administration had quietly ordered a surge in immigration arrests, and that ICE had detained more than 10,000 people in the prior five days.
The White House set a new benchmark of 2,000 arrests a day, roughly double the pace of about 1,000 a day earlier in the year, after senior adviser Stephen Miller and other officials expressed displeasure with how few people ICE was arresting. To hit the number, agency leaders ordered top ICE officials to redirect more officers into rounding up immigrants, and agents began seizing people at routine immigration check-ins, during traffic stops, and on the street.
The quota-driven push follows a stretch of deadly enforcement: between September 2025 and February 2026, Border Patrol and ICE agents shot at least 14 people, including two U.S. citizens who were killed, Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old VA intensive-care nurse thrown to the ground and shot at a protest. Setting an arrest target rather than prioritizing specific public-safety threats is the same numbers-first approach that immigration experts have warned produces wrongful arrests and violent encounters (see At Least 60 People Have Died in ICE Custody Since Trump's Second Term Began, at a Death Rate Far Above Recent Years).