The border is no longer a floodgate. And the crackdown is only getting started.
Because now ICE just broke a record that left Democrats fuming mad.
ICE Hits Unprecedented Enforcement Milestones
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is achieving historic levels in its immigration operations, with soaring figures for apprehensions, removals, and detainee numbers that underscore a intensified focus under the current administration.
As of November 15, the agency was detaining over 65,000 migrants—a new all-time high. This marks a sharp increase from under 60,000 in late September, right before the government shutdown, and below 40,000 back in January during the transition from President Biden to President Trump.
Driving this uptick is a wave of arrests, with ICE averaging close to 1,200 daily since October 1, setting a fresh benchmark.
Deportations are ramping up even faster, exceeding 1,250 per day. Annualized, that could top 450,000, eclipsing the 2012 peak, though it falls short of the administration’s ambitious 1 million target.
“They need to ramp it up,” said Rosemary Jenks, policy director at the Immigration Accountability Project. “There’s a big population that should be easier to remove, and we need to get to those and remove them. Americans are willing to support mass deportation, but it has to be mass deportation.”
Surge in Operations Amid Post-Shutdown Data Release
These statistics emerged in ICE’s routine detention update, which had been on hold during the recent government shutdown that started in late September 2025, triggered by Democrats rejecting a GOP-proposed spending measure amid heated debates over health care allocations, especially proposed tweaks to Obamacare that risked higher premiums for many.
The deadlock, extending into November, caused widespread furloughs, service interruptions, and economic fallout estimated at a 1.5% GDP reduction and $11 billion in lasting damages, per various analyses. Public sentiment, as reflected in surveys from Fox News and Gallup, largely pinned responsibility on Republicans, but Democrats eventually yielded to a deal reopening operations, a step some like New York Times’ Ezra Klein faulted as premature given supportive polls.
With releases paused amid the turmoil, this marks the initial fiscal year data since October 1. From then to November 15, ICE logged 54,735 book-ins as a measure of arrests, plus 7,066 from Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
This flips the script from the Biden era, where CBP dominated book-ins due to border turmoil, sidelining ICE from interior enforcement and limiting most actions to collecting migrants from correctional facilities.
In 2024, almost 95% of ICE detainees had criminal records or charges pending. That has dropped under 60%, prompting concerns that the agency isn’t prioritizing “criminal aliens” as emphasized by Mr. Trump.
Ms. Jenks dismissed worries about the shift in criminal percentages.
“I couldn’t care less how many of them have committed extra crimes. We need to deport all of them,” she said.
Funding Boosts, Discrepancies, and Public Backing
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin highlighted that under President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ICE has resources for up to 100,000 daily detentions, aiding swift removals.
“With innovative partnerships like Alligator Alcatraz, Speedway Slammer, Louisiana Lockup, and Cornhusker Clink, we’ve significantly expanded detention space. Despite a rapid number of injunctions, DHS is working rapidly to remove these aliens from detention centers to their final destination — home,” she said.
She offered figures varying from ICE’s official stats, claiming 70% of arrestees have criminal histories or charges, and projecting 600,000 deportations annually—a tally seemingly incorporating CBP expulsions, not just ICE removals, and still below the 1 million goal.
Officials have pointed to “self-deportations” to bridge the gap, estimating 1.6 million voluntary exits, though details remain vague. Ms. Jenks expressed skepticism without evidence.
“We need those numbers. If they’re not releasing them, then the assumption, logically, is they’re not good enough,” she said.
She noted the Act’s massive funding injection for ICE as a key promise for large-scale deportations.
“We need to see a million removals a year,” she said. “I get they have to ramp up to that. I have been defending them on giving them a minute to ramp it up. But they have to ramp it up.”
The initiative faces strong opposition from immigrant advocates, who decry arrests as “kidnappings” and resist in certain areas, yet surveys indicate broad public approval. A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll this month revealed 54% favor deporting “all immigrants who are here illegally,” rising to 79% for those with crimes.
