Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership told agents nationwide on Tuesday to increase immigration arrests by 1,000 more people daily, returning to a previous goal of 3,000 daily arrests, according to two sources familiar with the verbal directive.
It’s the latest sign of ongoing pressure on agents as the Trump administration doubles down on its immigration crackdown despite some Republican unease over who the agency is targeting. ICE also recently released a contract solicitation to expand holding space at agency offices, citing “exceptionally high operational tempo with increased arrests.”
With the directive on daily arrests, ICE returns to a previous White House imposed push to arrest 3,000 people a day, an unprecedented number that the agency has previously struggled to meet. ICE had recently been taking around 2,000 people into custody daily on average — a target that officials wanted to sustain.
They were also instructed to try to reach 19,000 arrests per week, which accounts for the fact that there are generally fewer arrests over the weekend and not as many officers in the field, one of the sources said. The source stressed that the agency is trying to push officers to arrest as many people as possible for deportation. As a point of comparison, in late June, ICE arrested just over 12,500 people in a week, according to the Deportation Data project, marking a high point.
In a statement to CNN, a Homeland Security spokesperson maintained that there are “NO quotas on arrests.”
“Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin’s leadership, ICE has been supercharged to find, arrest, and deport illegal aliens from the United States using every lawful tool available. This is promises made promises kept in action, and the results speak for themselves,” the spokesperson said.
Immigration remains a key political issue for the White House ahead of the midterm elections, and administration officials have been sensitive to any potential changes in operations that appear to weaken the president’s approach to his mass deportation pledge. That has occasionally fueled tensions between the Department of Homeland Security and the White House.
But some Republicans have criticized the administration’s tactics and decision to increasingly arrest undocumented immigrants without criminal records. Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents a heavily Hispanic district, recently broke with the president in a campaign ad ahead of the midterms.
The agriculture industry, which generally leans Republican, also recently raised alarm over an uptick in ICE activity that temporarily disrupted their operations.
Immigration arrests had already been increasing. In August, for example, ICE took around 51,000 people into custody, setting a new monthly high for the Trump administration. The previous high had been set just one month prior when the agency arrested more than 46,000 people.
Senior Trump officials have repeatedly denied that agents are required to meet arrest quotas, describing the push as a goal, and maintained that agents aren’t punished if they fail to meet that goal.
“I have never talked to anybody at the White House about any quota. We do our job every single day and we do it effectively,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on CNN’s “Inside Politics” last month. “Our focus is to go after the worst of the worst, but when we make contact with an illegal, regardless of how many years you’ve been here, we are obligated by statute to at that point arrest you.”
The continued ramp up in immigration arrests has required additional support from contractors. Last month, a contract solicitation reviewed by CNN revealed that the department is seeking contractors to build three different types of temporary facilities meant to help alleviate strain at existing facilities.
“Temporary infrastructure is urgently needed to expand secure processing and holding of illegal alien (IA) capacity and non-detained hearing space on site,” the solicitation states.
They include a field-detention unit, a room for interviews and processing, and a facility intended to be used for virtual immigration court hearings. A Homeland Security spokesperson said the agency has “no new facility plans to announce at this time.”
The agency has also adjusted some of the ways it is conducting operations, including vehicle stops.
Last week, ICE officers were told that they’d only be allowed to conduct vehicle stops if they have completed related training courses and must ensure that vehicles used for stops are equipped with lights and sirens, according to internal guidance reviewed by CNN.
The memo, which a senior ICE official said amended previous guidance, came on the heels of multiple controversial vehicle stops that have resulted in fatal, and non-fatal, shootings and against the backdrop of internal tension within the Trump administration over how to proceed with the stops, which the administration considers a key tool as it increases immigration arrests.
At the time, an ICE spokesperson denied in a statement that the guidance was new, saying: “Occasionally, ICE leadership issues guidance reminders to law enforcement officers.” The spokesperson maintained that vehicle stops will continue and the memo “makes no changes to how ICE conducts vehicle stops.”