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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested nearly 50,000 people in July, the highest monthly figure during President Donald Trump's second term.
The figure shows that the administration has continued to push its mass deportation agenda despite a shift in focus earlier this year: moving from high-profile operations in large cities with subsequent public outrage to more discreet arrests.
The figure of 49,571 arrests in July represents a 15% jump from the 43,021 the previous month and a 70% increase compared to the 29,241 in February following the crackdowns in Minnesota, according to government data that ICE provided to the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley, and which were analyzed by The Associated Press.
Migrant arrests in the month before Trump's inauguration were hovering above 8,000, a figure composed largely of immigrants transferred from municipal or state jails and prisons and handed over to ICE for deportation. During Trump's first year in office, the numbers began to rise as the administration relaxed rules on where and whom ICE could arrest, and poured billions of dollars into the agency.
The arrest figure jumped to more than 40,177 in December, according to the data, which was obtained through a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act.
Following protests and reports regarding the deaths of protesters in Minnesota in January, arrests began to fall to nearly 30,000 in February. After remaining stagnant for months, the figures rose in June to over 43,000 and then to approximately 49,500 in July.
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin promised earlier this year during his confirmation hearing to keep ICE out of the headlines, which suggested that the crackdown could take a more moderate approach. But his tenure has been marred by several deadly shootings of immigrants in encounters with ICE agents. And the figures show that Mullin has not deviated from President Trump's vision of mass deportations.
In which states are there the most migrant arrests by ICE?
Texas and Florida accounted for nearly 20,000 of the July arrests, a sign of how important those states have become to the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda. Both states have relied heavily on cooperation agreements with ICE called 287g agreements, which allow local and state law enforcement to operate, in essence, as arms of federal agencies regarding immigration issues.
The increase in arrests comes as ICE, which Congress reinforced with billions of dollars last summer, has also hired 12,000 new deportation officers and investigative agents.
[Publicidad]