U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers took more than 10,000 people into custody over five days at the close of June 2026, according to figures supplied to UC Berkeley's Deportation Data Project and reported first by The New York Times. The pace — above 2,000 arrests per day — nearly doubles the daily count logged earlier in 2026, when ICE averaged roughly 1,000 arrests per day.

How steep is the increase?

The surge places enforcement numbers well above every prior benchmark:

• A single Saturday at the close of the month logged more than 2,400 arrests, the highest single-day tally of 2026.
• ICE detention population grew by nearly 4,000 in days, crossing 63,000 by the following Tuesday.
• December 2025, the previous busiest month, averaged 1,283 arrests daily.
• January 2026 averaged about 1,212 arrests a day during the Minneapolis–St. Paul deployment.
• Before President Donald Trump's second term began, ICE averaged roughly 300 arrests a day nationwide, per the American Immigration Council.
• White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller's earlier goal of 3,000 arrests per day was never reached.

Three officials briefed on internal conversations told the Times that the push to raise arrest totals came directly from the White House. Agency leadership has settled on 2,000 arrests per day as the new baseline, one official said, adding that nobody inside the agency knows how long that pace can hold. Field supervisors were instructed to keep officers on seven-day schedules and to devote 80 percent of personnel to arrest operations rather than other duties.

Who is being picked up?

Tracking groups say roughly two in three "at-large" detentions this year involved people with no criminal record, despite repeated administration statements that enforcement targets serious offenders.

Cases reported in the same period illustrate the pattern:

• Sister Letty Ugboaja, a Nigerian-born nun and nurse, was detained in McAllen, Texas, on her way to Sunday church services and released the same day after a colleague alerted local officials.
• In Miami, attorney Cindy Blandon told reporters her client — a Nicaraguan father of two with an immigration court date not scheduled until 2027 — was picked up during what was supposed to be a routine Monday check-in.

Why has the street-level look changed?

The current campaign spreads arrests across routine encounters — scheduled check-ins, traffic stops, and street-level contacts — rather than the heavily publicized sweeps of 2025 that targeted Chicago, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis.

Operation Metro Surge, the Minnesota deployment that ran roughly ten weeks from early December 2025 into mid-February 2026, ended after federal agents fatally shot U.S. citizens Renée Good, a mother of three, and Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem oversaw the operation. Roughly six weeks after Pretti's death, Trump removed her and nominated Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, who was confirmed and sworn in the same month. Border czar Tom Homan had already begun withdrawing agents from Minnesota in February.

Mullin has described his approach as a quieter one. In an internal message reviewed by reporters, Marcos Charles, who leads ICE's deportation division, thanked staff for their "extraordinary efforts this past weekend" after the Saturday tally of 2,400 arrests. Trump said on February 4 that a "softer touch" may be needed on immigration, even as his administration pulled 700 federal officers from Minnesota and pledged to continue mass deportations.

What is the legal backdrop?

The enforcement push coincides with two consequential Supreme Court rulings in late June. On June 30, the justices struck down the administration's executive order attempting to end automatic birthright citizenship, ruling 6-3 that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil. Five days earlier, on June 25, the court ruled 6-3 the opposite way, clearing the path for the administration to strip Temporary Protected Status from roughly 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The decision could eventually reach more than a million people across the 17 countries still holding TPS.