Texas Border Business
Texas Border Business
Immigration arrests have surged across the United States, increasingly encompassing people with no criminal convictions or pending criminal charges as the Trump administration expands its mass deportation campaign, according to an Aug. 27 report by The New York Times.
An analysis of newly released federal data found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recorded 43,021 arrests in June and 49,571 in July, a 15 percent increase. The July total averaged nearly 1,600 arrests per day.
The Times reported that a majority of immigrants arrested in July were accused of civil immigration violations but had neither been convicted of a crime nor faced pending criminal charges. Those with previous violent-crime convictions accounted for less than 4 percent of arrests.
Among those swept up in the broader enforcement effort were immigrants married to U.S. citizens, people who entered the country legally and were pursuing asylum claims, and individuals whose temporary legal protections the administration sought to terminate.
The federal data was obtained by the Deportation Data Project, an academic initiative based at UC Berkeley and UCLA, through public-records litigation and analyzed by The New York Times.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the newspaper that the administration was fulfilling its commitment to arrest and deport criminals while maintaining that anyone unlawfully present in the United States remains subject to immigration enforcement.
Texas and Florida have emerged as major centers of the increased enforcement activity. According to the Timesanalysis, ICE has been making more than 380 arrests per day in Texas and more than 230 daily in Florida.
The expansion coincides with increased ICE staffing and greater cooperation with state and local law enforcement.
ICE has increasingly relied on the federal 287(g) program, which authorizes participating state and local law enforcement agencies to perform certain immigration-enforcement functions. Such partnerships accounted for approximately 6,500 arrests in July, or about 13 percent of the month’s total.
Texas and Florida together accounted for nearly 20,000 ICE arrests in July, reflecting the significant role both states play in federal immigration enforcement.
Meanwhile, deportations have averaged more than 1,000 people per day since last summer. According to data cited by the Times, deportation flights also increased during the spring and reached at least 329 in July.
Disclosure: This comparison is based on the most reliable federal data and publicly reported figures available at the time of publication. The findings are not conclusive because federal agencies have used different definitions, reporting periods, and methodologies for immigration removals and deportations. Some datasets may overlap or may not be directly comparable across administrations. Texas Border Business presents these figures for informational purposes and will update them as more complete federal data becomes available.
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