Deportation officers made nearly 1,000 arrests across the country Sunday, marking the largest number of single-day arrests only six days into the Trump administration and far surpassing the Biden administration average.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents made 956 arrests, according to an announcement from the agency. This figure has already outpaced the average daily ICE apprehension rate of the Biden administration in fiscal year 2024, which stood at roughly 310 daily arrests, according to figures previously released by the agency.
Deportation officers arrested numerous criminal migrants since President Donald Trump returned to office, including individuals tied to foreign gangs such as Tren de Aragua, a suspected terrorist and individuals convicted of sex crimes against children. The White House on Sunday showcased the arrest of a convicted child rapist, a man with suspected ties to ISIS and an MS-13 gang member wanted for murder.
ICE also announced a large-scale targeted operation in Chicago, a sanctuary city whose political leaders adamantly oppose the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with federal partners, including the FBI, ATF, DEA, CBP and the U.S. Marshals Service, began conducting enhanced targeted operations today in Chicago to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities,” the agency announced in a statement Sunday.
The 956 arrests are in addition to the roughly 1,300 ICE arrests border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday, putting the administration’s total immigration apprehensions over the week well above 2,000.
While the Trump White House is working to ramp up immigration arrests, it’s also orchestrating a more robust deportation operation.
Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, allowing him to utilize more resources to address the immigration crisis that began under the previous administration. Since that order, the White House has moved to deploy troops to the southern border and the Department of Defense has tapped military aircraft to help deportation operations.
ICE has eliminated so-called sensitive locations, public areas like schools or hospitals in which deportation officers were previously not allowed to conduct enforcement activities. The White House also expanded expedited removal — a policy that allows immigration enforcement officials to quickly remove illegal migrants from the U.S. by bypassing the immigration court process — from 100 miles within an international border to anywhere within the country.
The Trump administration also appears to be showcasing far less tolerance for recalcitrant countries — foreign governments that refuse to accept their deported citizens back from the U.S.
When the president of Colombia initially refused to accept deportation flights over the weekend, alleging mistreatment of his citizens, Trump immediately responded with threats of steep tariffs against all imported Colombian goods. Under pressure, Colombian President Gustavo Petro immediately capitulated, with his office not only declaring that his government would accept the deportees, but also offered his presidential plane to facilitate their return.
While ICE apprehensions and deportations tick up, the rates remain small in scope to the sheer level of illegal immigration experienced during the height of the border crisis under the Biden administration. There were an average of roughly 5,600 daily encounters with Border Patrol along the U.S.-Mexico border during fiscal year 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
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