WASHINGTON — Efforts to carry out President Donald Trump’s pledged clampdown on undocumented immigrants in the U.S. appeared to ramp up over the weekend, when nearly a thousand people were arrested in a single day on Sunday, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, reported arresting 956 people on Sunday and 286 on Saturday. Since Thursday, when ICE first started posting daily statistics to its account on X, the federal law enforcement agency has arrested 2,373 people less than one week into Trump’s second stint in the White House.
“We have no apologies and we’re moving very fast," Trump said on Monday at a House Republicans policy retreat in Florida.
The total over four days amounts to an average of just under 600 arrests a day, up from the 310 average recorded during fiscal year 2024, when former President Joe Biden was in office, according to an end-of-year report from the agency.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told ABC News in an interview on Sunday that the administration’s current efforts are focused on those it considers to be public safety and national security threats. He added, however, that anyone in the country illegally is “on the table,” noting it is a crime in and of itself to come into the U.S. illegally.
Homan added that the administration is in “the beginning stages” and in the process of “bringing more resources into this operation.” Asked how many arrests it hopes to reach daily, Homan responded by saying “as many as we can get.”
Many of the crackdown efforts on Sunday appeared to be focused on the Chicago area, with the city’s Drug Enforcement Administration posting photos on its X account showing Homan on the ground there with other federal officials.
Trump returned to power one week ago having pledged a swift and aggressive crusade to close the U.S.-Mexico border, reform immigration policies and carry out the “largest mass deportation program in history.” His campaign-trail promises came as polls showed such issues rising on the list of important ones to voters.
The president wasted no time making good on some, having already taken numerous executive actions on the topic, including declaring a national emergency at the Southern border, sending an additional 1,500 troops to help with the crackdown, ending birthright citizenship (which has been temporarily blocked by a judge), carrying out deportation flights using military aircraft and more.
In his first term, the number of administrative arrests in fiscal year 2017, when he assumed office, reached 143,470, a 30% increase from the previous fiscal year under former President Barack Obama, according to ICE’s end of year report (although the 2017 fiscal year included a few months in which Obama was still president.)
The 2018 fiscal year saw the number of administrative arrests reach its highest level since 2014 at 158,581, according to the agency. Arrests declined the next three fiscal years before reaching a high of 170,590 in 2023 under Biden, according to ICE’s reports for each year.
The 170,590 2023 figures amounts to a daily average of just under 470 arrests a day.
