Donald Trump's ICE arrested nearly 50,000 migrants in July, the highest total of his second term.

Immigration agents made 49,571 arrests, a 15 percent jump from 43,021 in June and a 70 percent increase since February, according to ICE data provided to the University of California, Berkeley. 

Texas and Florida alone accounted for nearly 20,000 detentions. In the month before Trump returned to office, ICE arrests hovered around 8,000, according to PBS News.

The agency credits its recruitment drive for the arrest spike. ICE employed roughly 29,000 people in June, up from 21,000 when Trump returned to office in January 2025, according to the New York Times. 

ICE has also rapidly expanded a program that deputizes local police to arrest immigrants. Roughly 14 percent of ICE arrests nationwide are now tied to those partnerships. 

Florida has credited the program with 15,000 arrests, while Texas says local officers have made another 10,000 on behalf of ICE. In smaller states, such as Wyoming and West Virginia, it accounts for more than half of all ICE arrests. 

The latest data dump has seen arrests double in two Democratic-led states, New Mexico and New Jersey, even as both states passed laws earlier this year restricting state officials from cooperating with ICE. Sparsely populated states such as Vermont and Montana also saw their arrest numbers double.

Trump has poured billions in new funding into ICE through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and expanded contracts with firms such as Palantir to assist with immigration and border enforcement. 

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin promised to shift the administration's approach to mass deportations, telling senators at his confirmation hearing that he intended to focus on arresting criminal migrants, 'the worse of the worse.'

However, most immigrants ICE arrested last month had no criminal charge or conviction, and fewer than 4 percent had a past violent conviction, according to the data.

The former Oklahoma senator took over from Kristi Noem, whom Trump fired roughly six weeks after DHS agents shot and killed two American citizens during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis.

The data itself has become contested because Marc Rosenblum, the official in charge of publishing information on immigration arrests and deportations, resigned in late July after a decade at DHS, citing a 'challenging and often hostile work environment.'