(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests fell sharply in July, even as White House adviser Stephen Miller pushed the agency to detain thousands of migrants each day to meet President Donald Trump’s goal of the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.
According to new data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), ICE averaged 990 arrests per day from July 1 to July 27 a 19 percent drop from the 1,224 daily arrests recorded in June. Both numbers fall far short of the 3,000 daily arrests Miller reportedly demanded from ICE field offices.
Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and the architect of his hardline immigration policies, had reportedly threatened to fire ICE field office leaders in the bottom 10 percent of migrant arrests. Yet, in a legal filing to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Department of Justice (DoJ) denied that ICE has any formal quotas.
“DHS has confirmed that neither ICE leadership nor its field offices have been directed to meet any numerical quota or target for arrests, detentions, removals, field encounters, or any other operational activities that ICE or its components undertake in the course of enforcing federal immigration law,” a DoJ attorney wrote, according to Politico.
The denial came after a federal judge pressed government lawyers in late July on whether ICE was rounding up people based on race or ethnicity to meet arrest targets.
The July decline in arrests followed public backlash to anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, as well as Trump’s unexpected directive to ease immigration enforcement for farmworkers and hotel staff. Both industries heavily rely on migrant labor and have faced economic strain.
Despite the drop, the Department of Homeland Security insists the agency continues to focus on high-risk offenders. Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, confirmed arrests fell in July but cited a 10 percent decrease in her own tally dropping from 31,000 in June to 27,000 in July.
“Despite a historic number of injunctions including the temporary restraining order in Los Angeles ICE continues to arrest the worst of the worst,” McLaughlin told Axios. “From gang members and terrorists to pedophiles, everyday ICE is removing these barbaric criminal illegal aliens from American communities.
Secretary [Kristi] Noem has been clear: nothing will stop us from carrying out the President and American people’s mandate to carry out the largest deportation of criminal illegal aliens in American history.” The numbers highlight the tension between the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration agenda and the practical and legal hurdles ICE faces on the ground.
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