ICE Struggles to Boost Arrest Numbers Despite Infusion of Resources

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has launched an all-of-government immigration crackdown with the urgency of a wartime effort, a mobilization comparable in scope to the responses to the 9/11 attacks and the coronavirus pandemic.

But despite the rapid infusion of resources, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is struggling to arrest higher numbers of immigrants and falling far short of the administration’s goals.

The president wants federal agents from across the government — even the Internal Revenue Service — looking for potential deportees, and the FBI says “thousands” of its employees are now supporting immigration operations. Trump has sent hundreds of troops to the southern border and military transport planes loaded with immigrants to as far away as India. The Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, where U.S. forces once sent enemy combatants seized on the battlefield, is now a destination for immigrant detainees, many picked up at the Mexican border.

ICE officers stormed out of the gates during the first 10 days of the administration. The agency did highly publicized enforcement raids in “sanctuary” cities run by Democrats, bringing along television crews and celebrities like Dr. Phil. For several days, ICE published its daily arrest numbers on social media, which started in the several hundreds per day and reached 1,179 on Jan. 26.

ICE arrests have sagged so far this month, according to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security, declining from about 800 per day in late January after Trump took office to fewer than 600 during the first 13 days of February. The administration has stopped publishing daily numbers, and Trump officials said they will release the data on a monthly basis to conserve resources. It is a level well below the Trump administration’s goal of 1,200 to 1,500 arrests per day.

“I’m not happy. We need more‚” Tom Homan, Trump’s designated “border czar,” said Thursday on Newsmax. {snip}

The top two enforcement officials at ICE were removed from their jobs this week and reassigned due to what Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said was a lack of “results.”

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A major hindrance to Trump’s mass deportation goals has been ICE’s limited resources and staffing. Republican lawmakers say they want to infuse the agency with billions in additional funding to hire more officers, expand detention centers and deliver on the president’s pledge to deport “millions” of people.

ICE spent weeks leading up to Inauguration Day preparing target lists of people they could arrest during the opening salvo of Trump’s promised crackdown. Those target lists have been depleted, and with so many officers working six or even seven days a week, the agency has had little time to do the research, surveillance and planning required to rebuild them and coordinate arrests, according to current and former ICE officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the strains.

Officers told to work extra shifts and postpone vacations have been assured they will be compensated, two current ICE officials said, but agency veterans say it’s unrealistic to expect arrests and deportations to keep rising without more money and personnel.

Trump has enlisted officers and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. marshals, the FBI and other agencies to help. ICE officials say the assistance is welcome but there is only so much other agencies can do if they aren’t trained in the processing, paperwork and case management elements of immigration enforcement.

Some White House aides sought to shift attention this week away from deportations by touting the president’s military campaign along the U.S.-Mexico border instead. {snip}

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Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said Tuesday that Homan was “begging” for additional funds when he met with lawmakers this week. {snip}

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Homan has long tried to tamp down expectations for the kind of nationwide mass arrest operation that would allow the agency to deport “millions” of people. He said ICE would target criminals, gang members and “the worst of the worst” — emphasizing quality over quantity.

But Trump and other top aides are pushing for bigger numbers. Trump also promised millions of deportations during his first term but topped out at about 267,000 during the 2019 fiscal year. ICE would have to deport more than 2,700 people every day to reach 1 million annually, and the agency has never tallied half that amount in a single year.

When Trump called on his top aide Stephen Miller to list the administration’s accomplishments this week, Miller emphasized the steep decline in illegal border crossings, not deportations.

Illegal entries fell during most of 2024 as the Biden administration curbed access to the asylum system. Under Trump, they have plunged even lower.

But the drop in illegal crossings has left ICE with fewer easy-to-deport immigrants. That puts more pressure on ICE officers to go out into U.S. cities and communities to make arrests.

Homan has said he wants to take a phased approach to “widening the aperture” beyond immigrants with criminal records.

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