Federal immigration agents opened more case files on newly detained people than in any other month of Donald Trump's second term this past July, booking in excess of 46,000 individuals on civil immigration violations, internal Department of Homeland Security figures show. CBS News obtained the preliminary data, which the government itself has not released. The violations counted are civil, not criminal — unlawful entry, overstayed visas, and similar infractions — and the tally arrives as the agency pushes deeper into airports, check-in offices, and residential blocks nationwide.
This marks the second straight month enforcement numbers have topped themselves. July's count moved past the roughly 43,000 people booked in June, which had been the previous high-water mark for the administration at that point. That upward trend traces back to December 2025, when bookings tied to the Minneapolis-centered Operation Metro Surge lifted the monthly figure above 42,000. Officers averaged close to 1,500 bookings a day last month — a fast clip, though still under the 2,000-a-day benchmark the White House has reportedly asked the agency to hit. Some of the people counted were initially flagged by Customs and Border Protection before being transferred into ICE custody.
Custody Numbers Creep Toward a Record
Month after month of rising arrests has pushed the number of people ICE is currently holding to about 68,000 as of the first weekend of August — nearing the all-time high just above 70,000 reached in January. Independent figures compiled by Syracuse University's TRAC project placed the confined population at 65,765 as of July 11, and found that 46,436 of them had no criminal conviction whatsoever on their record.
The current rebound follows a sharp pullback that began after federal agents killed two American citizens in Minneapolis: Renee Good, shot by an ICE officer on January 7, 2026, and Alex Pretti, killed by Border Patrol agents 17 days later, on January 24. Both deaths occurred amid Operation Metro Surge and drew condemnation from lawmakers in both parties.
Markwayne Mullin, who replaced Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary this spring, has since steered the agency away from the large, camera-ready sweeps ICE ran through Democratic-led cities the previous year, leaning instead on traffic stops and low-visibility pickups. Mullin told reporters last month the agency was "turning up the heat on the streets."
Theresa Cardinal Brown, who worked in immigration policy roles at DHS under both the Bush and Obama administrations, described the change as cosmetic rather than a shift in ambition — she noted current leadership has moved away from inviting camera crews to operations. Even so, she said, "the administration never gave up on its goal of mass deportations."
Traffic Stops With Fatal Outcomes
The summer's enforcement push has also proven deadly. Last month, ICE officers fatally shot two immigrants during attempted traffic stops roughly 2,000 miles apart: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, killed in Houston, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, killed in Biddeford, Maine, less than a week apart. Neither man was the intended target of the operation that led to his death. Both shootings triggered outrage from local officials and congressional Democrats, some of whom have demanded the agents' training and vetting records. In their wake, ICE briefly ordered officers to largely suspend vehicle stops — only for President Trump to reverse the pause roughly 24 hours later. Federal and local investigations into both deaths remain active.
Enforcement has also spread into new settings. Agents working in plain clothes have begun making arrests inside terminal buildings, approaching travelers at gates and check-in counters using passenger records supplied by the Transportation Security Administration; several of the encounters have been filmed by onlookers and shared widely online.
Separately, after the administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for more than 300,000 Haitian nationals, officials and advocates say some of those migrants — including residents of Springfield, Ohio — have begun receiving notices instructing them to check in at local ICE field offices, alarming communities that believed their status shielded them from enforcement.
Why the Public Can't See the Full Picture
It's worth stressing that July's numbers were never released by the government itself; they surfaced exclusively through CBS News' reporting, and most other coverage of this story is citing that same reporting rather than independent figures. ICE has not published its congressionally mandated detention and deportation report since April 9, 2026, a gap The Marshall Project reports has prompted lawsuits from groups spanning the political spectrum, all demanding the data's release. Separately, the American Immigration Council has documented that the detention system has grown faster than staffing and bed space can support, a mismatch tied to overcrowding and complaints about inadequate medical care inside facilities.
In a statement, DHS told CBS News that more than 3 million people have left the United States since Trump returned to office, including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations, and that as of July 12 the agency had deported nearly 985,000 people and arrested more than 1 million. With the detained population still trending toward January's peak and no sign the pace will slow, whether July's record stands through the summer — or falls again in August — remains an open question.
