MIAMI — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 49,571 people in July 2026, the highest single-month total recorded during President Trump’s second term, according to government data provided by ICE to the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA, and analyzed by the Associated Press.
The July figure represents a 15% increase over the 43,021 arrests recorded in June, and a 70% increase over the 29,241 arrests recorded in February.
Arrests hovered at just over 8,000 in the month before Trump took office. That number climbed to more than 40,177 by December 2025, then to 43,021 in June 2026, before reaching the July total.
Arrests had dipped in February following two fatal shootings in Minnesota that sparked protests, before surging again in June and July.
The July total averages out to roughly 1,599 arrests per day.
A Timeline of the Increase
Looking at the full arc of the data illustrates how uneven the climb has been. Arrests began at a little over 8,000 per month in the period immediately before Trump’s inauguration — a figure the Deportation Data Project notes was largely composed of immigrants already transferred from city or state jails and prisons and turned over to ICE for removal, rather than arrests made through independent field operations.
By December 2025, the monthly figure had risen to more than 40,177, and following the fatal shootings in Minnesota in January 2026, arrests fell in February to 29,241.
The numbers then remained relatively flat for several months before climbing sharply again in June, to 43,021, and once more in July, to 49,571.
Where the Arrests Concentrated
Texas and Florida together accounted for nearly 20,000 of July’s total arrests, according to Deportation Data Project figures reported by MySA — a reflection of how deeply state and local law enforcement in both states have become integrated into federal deportation operations.
The Los Angeles metropolitan area saw a sharp increase in arrests beginning in June 2025 and has maintained elevated detention levels into 2026, though the Deportation Data Project’s most recent comprehensive individual-level dataset extends only through early March 2026, meaning researchers cannot yet independently break down the July national total by Los Angeles neighborhood or city using that specific database.
According to the same dataset, the cumulative total of ICE apprehensions for fiscal year 2026 reached 368,135.
Costs Per Removal
The Department of Homeland Security estimates the cost of an enforced removal flight at approximately $18,245 per person, compared to roughly $5,100 per person for voluntary self-deportations arranged through the government’s CBP Home mobile application — a gap of more than $13,000 per individual between the two removal methods.
Staffing & Resources
The arrest increase coincides with a substantial expansion of ICE’s operating capacity. The agency has hired 12,000 new deportation officers and investigative agents, funded by billions of dollars appropriated by Congress.
ICE has also increasingly relied on partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies to carry out arrests, including at traffic stops, a practice that has grown significantly over the past year.
Separately, ICE has begun arresting Haitian nationals following the end of Temporary Protected Status for that population, with the first deportation flight to Haiti since the TPS termination departing as part of this broader enforcement expansion.
Data Source & Availability
The figures come from records obtained by the Deportation Data Project through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, since the Department of Homeland Security largely stopped publicly reporting immigration enforcement data at the start of the second Trump administration.
The project, based at UC Berkeley and UCLA and led by faculty director David Hausman, maintains what it describes as the first centralized repository of individual-level U.S. immigration enforcement data, covering ICE actions from mid-November 2023 through late June 2025 in its most detailed public release, supplemented by more recent aggregate figures such as the July 2026 totals.
