The Trump administration arrested and deported a record number of immigrants in July, according to newly released government data – apprehending an average of 1,500 people and removing 1,100 people daily.
This latest data confirms what attorneys and immigrant advocates have been seeing across the US – although the administration has moved away from the high-profile, militarized raids that came to define its immigration enforcement approach last year, it is quietly ramping up its operations.
“The way that people are being detained is far less flashy, but we are still continuing to see arrests,” said Melissa Shepard, director of legal services at the southern California-based immigrant services group ImmDef. “It’s just on a quieter scale instead of, you know, 10, 12 officers making one arrest, you have a handful of officers pulling someone over.”
Overall, 49,571 people were arrested last month, according to government data obtained by the Deportation Data Project – the highest number since October 2022, and a 15% increase from the previous record set in June of this year.
Despite the administration’s insistence that it is targeting criminals, a record number of people caught in the surge of arrests in July had no prior criminal history. July was the first month during the second Trump administration that the majority of people – 51% of arrestees — had no criminal convictions or charges, according to the Guardian’s analysis.
Removals were also at a record high in July. Nearly 34,000 people were removed from the US last month, the most since the start of the second Trump administration.
Boosted by a $70bn funding surge, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – the agency that oversees ICE and the border patrol – has been working to ramp up to the White House goal of 2,000 arrests every day. Immigrants are being arrested when they report to mandated appointments at ICE offices, at traffic stops, outside their homes and, increasingly, at US airports.
“I think it’s just they’re looking for any way to be able to continue to detain people,” said Shepard. “They are being creative.” In recent weeks, she said, ImmDef has advised even clients with pending or valid immigration statuses, who are legally cleared for travel, to avoid flying due to the uptick of enforcement.
Attorneys are also advising clients with temporary protective status (TPS) to make sure they apply for different forms of immigration relief after the supreme court cleared the way for the administration to strip the designation from 50,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians.
In the past month, the administration has been particularly focused on enforcement in the Springfield, Ohio, area, where a large group of Haitians with TPS had settled in recent years. Advocacy groups in Springfield said that Haitians were being called in to ICE offices and fitted with ankle monitors.
The first deportation flight to Haiti since the supreme court decision landed last week. TPS for Salvadorans is set to expire in September – ending protections for 170,000 people.
“I am anticipating and a little afraid for what it’s going to look like with the end of TPS,” said Shepard. “I think we are at the precipice.”
ICE’s enforcement powers have also been boosted by the rapidly expanding 287(g) program – which deputizes local law enforcement agencies to carry out immigration enforcement. Markwayne Mullin, the DHS secretary, called the program “the greatest partnership we can have” – and said it was a key part of his goal to conduct enforcement in a “more quiet way”.
Attorneys and advocates told the Guardian that these sorts of immigration arrests can go unnoticed in many communities, because it can be difficult for passersby to discern whether a local police officer is making a routine traffic stop or an immigration apprehension. Volunteer groups that, amid the militarized raids last winter, had trained to document ICE arrests and take down details to help locate those in detention later are now recalibrating how to track enforcement in their cities and provide assistance.
