President Donald Trump campaigned on carrying out the largest deportation operation in American history. New federal immigration data show his administration continuing to build the enforcement machinery needed to pursue that promise.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 49,571 people in July, the highest monthly total of Trump’s second term and more than six times the number recorded in the month before he returned to the White House, according to government data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by The Associated Press.
The July figure was up 15 percent from 43,021 arrests in June and roughly 70 percent from 29,241 in February. In December 2024, the final full month before Trump took office, ICE arrests stood at slightly more than 8,000, with much of the agency’s enforcement involving people transferred from state and local jails.
The increase marks another step toward a central promise of Trump’s 2024 campaign.
“We will begin the largest deportation operation in the history of our country,” Trump told supporters during the campaign. He repeatedly said the effort would begin with criminals and other illegal immigrants considered threats to public safety.
Since taking office in January 2025, the administration has broadened the pool of immigrants subject to arrest, expanded cooperation with state and local law enforcement and secured billions of dollars from Congress to increase ICE’s enforcement capacity.
Despite a drop around April, immigration arrests are on the rise month-over-month in 2026, with July 2026 being the largest month for arrests all year.
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The result has been a steady expansion of interior arrests.
ICE arrests climbed throughout much of Trump’s first year back in office, surpassing 40,000 in December 2025. The numbers fell after two fatal shootings during immigration enforcement encounters in Minnesota in January sparked protests and criticism from Democratic officials. Arrests dropped to about 29,000 in February before climbing sharply again in June and July.
The latest surge has come with less national attention than some of the administration’s earlier operations in major cities. Rather than relying principally on large, highly visible enforcement actions, ICE has increasingly used routine arrests, cooperation with local police and other lower-profile tactics to expand its reach.
Texas and Florida accounted for nearly 20,000 of the July arrests. Both states have expanded their use of so-called 287(g) agreements, which authorize participating state and local law-enforcement officers to perform certain federal immigration functions under ICE supervision.
The agency has also grown considerably. Congress provided billions of dollars for immigration enforcement, while ICE added roughly 12,000 deportation officers and investigative agents as the administration sought to increase both arrests and removals.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who took office in March, has indicated that the administration intends to continue enforcement while attracting less of the public spectacle that surrounded some earlier operations. The change in presentation has not meant a retreat in enforcement: July produced the largest monthly arrest count of Trump’s current presidency. Mullin was sworn in March 24 after leaving the Senate to join Trump’s Cabinet.
An ICE arrest does not necessarily result in deportation, and the July arrest figures alone do not show how many of those taken into custody were ultimately removed from the United States.
But as a measure of enforcement activity, the trend is unmistakable. ICE went from a little more than 8,000 arrests in the month before Trump returned to office to nearly 50,000 in July. After campaigning on a promise to dramatically expand immigration enforcement, Trump is increasingly putting the personnel, money and federal-state partnerships behind it.
