In a recent directive, senior Trump administration officials, including Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to increase daily immigrant arrests to 3,000, effectively tripling prior figures. This development was reported by Axios following a May 21 meeting with ICE field leaders.
The new target marks a significant escalation compared to the early days of Trump's second term when arrest numbers were considerably lower. The administration’s push aims to intensify removal efforts amid a period where border-crossing numbers have sharply declined. Instead of focusing solely on border apprehensions, ICE is expanding its enforcement to non-border communities nationwide.
Despite heightened rhetoric and publicized deportation flights, data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) indicate that overall deportation numbers closely mirror those from the final year of the Biden administration. While border-area removals have decreased due to fewer migrant crossings, removals from within the US have risen.
This aggressive approach coincides with Republican efforts on Capitol Hill to augment immigration funding by $147 billion over the next decade as part of a broader legislative package recently passed by the House.
Sources report that some ICE officials were unsettled by the ambitious arrest goals, fearing repercussions if targets are missed; others interpret Miller's tone as an attempt to incentivize performance. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have also requested additional resources, including extra staffing and detention capacity, to support these enforcement objectives.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson emphasized the administration’s commitment: "Keeping President Trump's promise to deport illegal aliens is something the administration takes seriously. We are committed to aggressively and efficiently removing illegal aliens from the United States, and ensuring our law enforcement officers have the resources necessary to do so. The safety of the American people depends upon it."
