3 minPolitics
ICE sets record for arrests and deportations in fiscal 2026, DHS says
The Department of Homeland Security says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement set records for both arrests and deportations in fiscal year 2026, with Secretary Markwayne Mullin describing the agency as having been unleashed.
The Department of Homeland Security says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement set new records for both arrests and deportations in fiscal year 2026, a result Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced as a milestone for the agency. The department's figures place the agency's totals above any previous year in its history, and DHS presented the results as evidence that enforcement activity has reached a new level.
According to DHS, ICE made more than 491,000 arrests during the fiscal year, including nearly 475,000 administrative arrests. The department describes the administrative arrest total as the highest in the agency's history. Deportations reached 483,200, surpassing the previous record of 442,640. DHS states that total arrests exceeded those of former President Joe Biden's final three fiscal years combined by nearly 65,000. Deportations, by contrast, fell short of the Biden administration's three-year combined total by fewer than 3,000, a gap the department did not dwell on in its framing.
DHS also compared the current figures with the first fiscal year of the Biden administration. Arrests were more than six times that earlier level, and deportations were more than eight times higher. The comparison is central to the department's argument that enforcement has shifted sharply since the change in administrations.
The department highlighted individual months as well. It reported that August 2026 set a single-month arrest record, with 50,925 arrests, and that September 2026 logged more than 48,000 arrests. DHS said September arrests were more than 300 percent above the average for a September under the prior administration. Those monthly figures are the basis for the department's claim that the pace of enforcement accelerated toward the end of the fiscal year.
Looking at the broader period since January 2025, DHS claims that more than 3 million migrants have left the United States. Within that span, the department reported nearly 1.2 million deportations and more than 1.25 million arrests as of October. The cumulative totals are presented by the department as a measure of the administration's overall policy, rather than of the fiscal year alone.
Mullin framed the results as the product of a changed approach at the agency. He said ICE had been unleashed to target and remove illegal aliens, the term the department uses in its statement. The remark places the figures within the administration's broader argument that earlier restrictions had limited what the agency could do.
The figures were released by DHS, and the department's numbers have not been independently verified. The statement does not include a breakdown by country of origin or an independent assessment of how the totals were calculated, and no outside analysts are cited in the department's announcement.
Source: foxnews.com
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