ICE shatters illegal immigrant arrest and deportation records in 2026

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and deported more illegal immigrants in fiscal 2026 than any year on record, according to the Department of Homeland Security.“Fiscal Year 2026 saw the highest number of ICE deportations and arrests for any year in ICE’s history. September 2026 was the best September in ICE’s history in terms of arrests,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement. “The total number of ICE arrests in Fiscal Year 2026 was more than all three full fiscal years under Biden combined, as the patriots of ICE work around the clock to make America safe again.”Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, ICE and partner agencies have arrested more than 1.25 million illegal immigrants and removed 1.2 million people from the country, the DHS announced Thursday. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) ICE arrested more than 491,000 individuals in fiscal 2026, which ran from October 2025 through September 2026. That figure includes 474,850 administrative arrests.Administrative arrests are those that ICE officers make without a judicial warrant signed by a judge. Democrats and immigrant rights advocates have called for ICE to obtain a court warrant for each arrest in an effort to curtail how many people are taken into custody and detained through immigration proceedings, but those calls have gone unanswered by Congress.The administrative arrest figure is double what it was in 2025 and more than 2022, 2023, and 2024 combined. The previous record was 288,390, set during the Obama administration.However, the 1.25 million total arrests under Trump comes four months after ICE said it had arrested 602,000 in Trump’s first 18 months. That would mean an additional 623,000 illegal immigrants were arrested over the past four months alone.The DHS said ICE deported 483,200 illegal immigrants in 2026, up from 442,640 the previous year.In total, the DHS stated that more than 3 million “migrants” have left the United States, changing the language of its previous statement from illegal immigrants to migrants.TRUMP’S 2018 IMMIGRATION PROPOSAL COULD GO FURTHER THAN 2018 DACA DEALThe number of illegal immigrants believed to be residing in the United States rose during former President Joe Biden’s final year in office to the highest levels in history, according to a report released in July.The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in New York, estimated that approximately 15.8 million people were residing in the U.S. illegally as of mid-2024, just as the historic border crisis was winding down.