Immigration officers have arrested an average of more than 1,000 people a day within the first months of 2026, nearly double the average number of arrests per day at roughly the same point last year, according to a new analysis.
Despite high-profile surges of federal agents into Democratic-led states and cities, arrests in those areas have largely fallen flat, while arrests in states such as Texas and Florida have spiked, according to a review of arrest data from The New York Times.
Trump’s push into Minnesota, led by former Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino, has faced an onslaught of lawsuits and allegations accusing agents of brutalizing protesters and immigrants alike.
While arrest data shows a stunning number of 5,000 arrests in the Minneapolis area from December through March, agents from four other Immigration and Customs Enforcement field offices in southern states arrested thousands of others within the period.
Agents in the Miami area reported making nearly 10,000 arrests in that same time frame, the review found.
But roughly half of all reported arrests were “custodial” arrests, where ICE picks up someone who is already in law enforcement custody, despite the administration’s rhetoric suggesting violent immigrants are roaming free on city streets.
An earlier analysis discovered there were roughly 11 percent fewer immigration arrests in February, though arrest levels were still nearly four times higher than those under Joe Biden’s administration.
The data follows the administration’s months-long efforts to arrest, detain and deport tens of thousands of people to support the president’s vast anti-immigration agenda, which Trump promised throughout his campaign would amount to the “largest deportation operation” in American history, targeting more than 9 million people.
Homeland Security reported as many as 675,000 deportations in 2025, while nearly 70,000 people are in ICE detention on any given day in facilities across the country. A vast majority have not been convicted of any crimes.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and an architect of Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, announced last year that DHS was setting “a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day.”
An internal document viewed by The New York Times suggests ICE has identified seven million the agency believes can be deported but who are not currently in detention.
Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the Department of Justice have denied that such a quota exists, despite Miller’s public statements.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin — Trump’s pick to replace Noem, who was fired earlier this month — said this week that “no quota has been set” for his term as DHS chief.
“The president of the United States sets the policies, and I’ll be working with the president,” he said during his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday. “If you have a question for Stephen Miller, please ask him.”
While national attention has drifted from agents storming Home Depot parking lots and other high-profile raids, there does not appear to be any sign that the Trump administration is powering down a strategy that has fueled allegations of constitutional violations, illegal use of force and racial profiling.
The Trump administration has made it much easier to make arrests after a series of policy decisions that have largely targeted people who were already legally living in the U.S.
Immigration court judges have been ordered by the Department of Justice to dismiss immigrants’ cases, rendering them without legal status — and making them immediately vulnerable to arrest and removal from the country, with officers standing outside courtroom doors.
The administration is also working to strip humanitarian protections for nearly one million people while they pursue legal pathways to stay in the country, including recently resettled refugees and tens of thousands of people who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration.
Last year, the administration also choked off arrested immigrants’ eligibility to have a bond hearing to secure their release from ICE detention while their cases play out in court.
That has resulted in thousands of lawsuits from immigrants fighting to get out of ICE detention, alleging they were unconstitutionally denied due process.
Since Trump returned to office, immigrants have filed more than 26,000 such lawsuits — more than the number filed in the last three administrations combined, according to a ProPublica database.
“The objective is 100 percent for individuals to give up,” Rekha Sharma-Crawford, a Missouri-based attorney and second vice president at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told The Independent this month.
“It is designed to short-circuit any due process that they may be entitled to,” she said.
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