Has ICE Been More Active Under Trump?

Has U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement been more active under returning U.S. President Donald Trump? A new number citied by The White House shows this might be the case if arrest continue at the current pace. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that in 2025, ICE arrests had topped 100,000 under Trump, corresponding to about 20 weeks of 52 weeks in the year. Extrapolated, this would mean 260,000 arrests in a full year.

In fiscal year 2024, ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations, which are responsible for apprehending undocumented immigrants in the interior of the country, only arrested around 113,000 people. However, in FY 2023, this had been as high as 170,000 people and in FY 2018, close to 160,000 people.

In Trump's first month in office, roughly corresponding with February 2025, DHS said it made 20,000 ICE arrests, a significant step up from numbers under the Biden administration in 2024, when ICE arrested fewer than 10,000 people per month, but short of the 600 percent increase the department claimed then. However, in late 2022 and early 2023, ICE under the Biden administration had arrested as many as 16,000 people per month during a time when illegal border crossings from Mexico into the U.S. once again surged.

Earlier this month, the administration also confirmed an earlier report that ICE had arrested the most people in a single day in its history on June 3 - 2,200.