ICE arrests hit record clip for Trump's 2nd term as agency leans into 'deportation-maxxing'

ICE agents arresting a suspect.

During the month of June, detentions made by ICE soared to a record high since President Trump returned to office in January 2025, new Homeland Security Department data shows. Tom Homan, the Trump administration's border-czar says ICE is in its "deportation-maxxing" phase.

According to CBS News, ICE made 43,000 arrests, averaging 1,438 arrests per day. The arrest total was the largest since the beginning of Trump's second term, when he began aggressively addressing the border and immigration crisis that festered under the Biden administration. CBS News reported the increased arrest numbers come as the Trump administration has instructed ICE to ramp up the number of arrests made.

Early numbers in July showed ICE was averaging even more arrests per day than it did in June, with an average of 1,593 daily arrests through the first 11 days of the month. Late last month, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he'd set a goal for DHS to double the number of deportations made last year. In 2025, the DHS deported 675,000 illegal immigrants, while another 2.2 million illegals self-deported. The DHS would need to deport around 1.3 million illegal immigrants by year's end to reach the goal set by Mullin, and the deportation process begins with arrests made by ICE. 

Even with the record number of arrests in June and the fast start in July, ICE agents are still falling short of the daily goal. Border czar Tom Homan addressed some of the factors holding ICE back from hitting those targets during an interview with NewsNation's Katie Pavlich on Wednesday night. The partial government shutdown, during which the Homeland Security Department wasn't fully funded, negatively impacted ICE's ability to make arrests, Homan said. "We're hitting on all cylinders now -- we're deportation-maxxing since we were fully funded," Homan quipped. But there's more to it than the partial shutdown.

"Even though ICE is hitting record numbers, they’re doing that despite the factors [of] over 100 nationwide injunctions followed by radical judges that affects our arrests, our detentions and our removals," Homan said. He added that the playbook being used by Trump's political opponents to curtail his agenda is similar to the one used in the attempt to derail his presidential campaign ahead of the 2024 election: lawfare. 

"The open border advocates, who have a lot of money, are suing the Trump administration every day.” In fact, Homan said, "There are more nationwide injunctions against us right now, that slows us down -- over 100. That’s more than every other president in the history of the nation combined.” Homan went on to say ICE is on pace to set another arrest record in July. 

Watch his interview with Pavlich below.