ICE makes record number of arrests in June as surge continues

(NewsNation) — More than 43,000 immigrants targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were booked into ICE detention centers in June alone, establishing a new high mark since President Donald Trump took office in 2025.

Data released this week by the Department of Homeland Security shows of the 65,765 currently in federal custody, 43,138 were detained last month. White House border czar Tom Homan told reporters ICE made the highest number of arrests in agency history last month.

Homan said ICE is on pace to make even more arrests in July — a month in which ICE officers fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine. DHS officials acknowledged after the two men were not the target of the enforcement operation.

ICE averaged 1,438 arrests per day in June, according to the data, which showed over the first 11 days of July, federal officers were making 1,593 arrests per day.

A NewsNation source said White House senior adviser Stephen Miller ordered ICE officers to begin working seven days a week after growing frustrations from the Trump administration that ICE arrests had dropped.

The June surge included a five-day stretch in which ICE made 10,000 arrests, the White House confirmed.

“We’re turning up the heat on the streets,” Homan told reporters last week in Washington. “We’re out there working harder than we ever have because we’ve empowered our law enforcement to do their job.”

Of those in federal custody, nearly 89% were arrested by ICE rather than being transferred from Customs and Border Protection. The shift indicates that ICE remains active in the nation’s interior despite DHS not operating a multi-agency enforcement operation since Minneapolis.

Homan acknowledged this week ICE officers would soon surge in New York City, where an arrest was made this week after a man allegedly attacked on a federal building in Lower Manhattan.

Authorities said 43-year-old Andrew Arrabaca, an Army veteran, targeted a federal building in New York City that houses ICE, the FBI and a federal immigration court.

Homan said there continues to be some public opinion the Trump administration is not cracking down hard enough on illegal immigration. DHS said of those currently in ICE custody, 19,329 have been convicted of a crime and an additional 20,247 face pending criminal charges.

That is up from April, when the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported 18,731 faced pending criminal charges and 17,589 were convicted criminals. Nearly 24,000 others in ICE custody had other immigration-related violations, according to TRAC.

Homan said this week ICE arrests are up about 40% over the same time period in 2025 now that ICE and other DHS agencies are fully funded. He acknowledged that arrests dropped 12-16% during the government shutdown.

A White House official cited the signing of the Secure America Act, which provides $70 billion for various DHS agencies through 2029. The guaranteed funding covers the costs of hiring more federal immigration officers and agents, streamlining immigration courts and allows ICE to run more efficiently.

“Our numbers are higher than they’ve ever been,” Homan said this week. “I’m sick and tired of people saying we’re not doing enough because that’s an insult to every ICE agent that is strapping up every day and working six and seven days a week to get this done.”

Jeff Arnold is a national immigration enterprise reporter for NewsNation Digital, covering immigration-related issues from the border to cities across the country. Send him story ideas at [email protected]. 

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