US ICE
Detention arrests are on the rise again.

Immigration detentions hit a monthly high in July as the Trump administration continued to focus on raising arrest numbers.

Citing figures from the Department of Homeland Security that have not been made public yet, CBS News reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained 46,000 people last month.

"We're turning up the heat on the streets," Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a press conference last month. "We're out there working harder than we've ever had because we've empowered our law enforcement to do their job."

The outlet noted that the summer enforcement surge was in reaction to a White House goal of 2,000 arrests a day. Last month, the average hit 1,500 as immigration officers upped arrests at airports and descended on immigration check-in appointments. The Trump has also removed the Temporary Protected Status of 300,000 Haitian migrants, increasing those who could be arrested.

This would be the second consecutive month in which arrests increased. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) there were more than 43,000 detention arrests in June. Also, the number of removal orders increased 30 percent in June to more than 100,000.

According to TRAC, the number of people held in detention had trended downward for several months after hitting a January 2026 high of 70,767. By April, the number of people held in detention had fallen to 60,311, however, as of July 11 that number had bounced back up to 65,765. CBS News reported that as of this past weekend the figure had again risen to about 68,000.

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The brief decline in detentions between January and April followed the high-profile shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of immigration enforcement officers. Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot during an altercation with federal immigration officers on January 7. Good attempted to drive away after being confronted by officers, and drove in the direction of an officer, who opened fire.

Just a couple of weeks later, on January 24, Alex Pretti, 37, was shot by ICE officers. Pretti was on the ground with multiple officers restraining him when one of the officers drew their weapon and shot him in the back. Pretti was legally carrying a gun, but he did not draw the weapon, and footage appeared to show he had been disarmed before being shot, ABC News noted.

After those incidents, Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino, who had largely been the face of the immigration enforcement efforts, retired. In March, President Trump fired Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security secretary, replacing her with Mullin.