White House Renews Pressure On ICE To Turbocharge Arrests

The White House is renewing the pressure on federal immigration agents to massively increase arrest numbers.

Multiple Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sources told The Daily Wire that they’re back to working seven days a week as the Trump administration pushes for higher arrest numbers. ICE made more than 10,000 arrests during a recent five-day period, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Over the weekend, ICE agents across the country were “called into work on a mandatory 100% manpower work week surge effort,” one agency source said, adding that the “huge effort” was “pushed super last minute, destroying officers’ personal lives in the meantime.”

The all-gas, no-brakes approach is “exhausting,” another agency source said.

(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

The goal of the new effort is to sustain 2,000 arrests per day, up from 1,000 earlier this year, according to The New York Times.

A White House official confirmed that “numbers” are “increasing” as a “result of continued work by the administration on many different fronts.”

“Of course, the White House works with their partners at different agencies to ensure the President’s agenda is being enacted. At the same time, the Secure America Act guaranteed funding for 3 years, hiring has continued to increase, the immigration courts are more streamlined, and ICE is operating more efficiently every day,” the official said.

ICE was instructed to focus on increasing arrest numbers under the leadership of then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, leading to aggressive and flashy sweeps across cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

When Markwayne Mullin took the helm at DHS, he indicated there would be a softer approach to how the agency carries out its mass deportation plan. The shift came after two fatal shootings of anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents.

“We’re still enforcing immigration laws, we’re still deporting illegals that shouldn’t be here, we’re still going after the worst of the worst, but we’re doing it in a more quiet way because my goal in six months is to not have DHS on the lead story everyday,” Mullin said in April.

Markwayne Mullin says his leadership style at DHS entails doing deportations “in a more quiet way.” pic.twitter.com/GZ5oe82hjg

— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) April 16, 2026

During a press conference Wednesday, Mullin announced that arrests and deportations are surging.

“We’re seeing our arrest numbers come up, we’re seeing our deportation numbers continue to increase,” Mullin said. “Right now, we’re deporting on average over 3,000 individuals, actually the average has been for several weeks now over 3,200 individuals a day, 70% of those individuals we’re deporting have outstanding criminal charges on them or they’ve already been charged with a felony.”

“So when we go after the worst of the worst, which is exactly what we’re doing, we’re saving lives,” Mullin said.

In a statement, DHS said “since day one” they’ve been “delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists.”

“Nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S. More than 3 million illegal aliens are out of the country and counting. Our message is clear: if you come to our country illegally, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you,” an agency spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, ICE’s detention population increased by 4,000 detainees with the facilities holding more than 63,000 illegal immigrants as of Tuesday, The New York Times reported.

ICE leadership has applauded agency personnel for supporting the latest effort.

“I want to personally thank each of you for your extraordinary efforts this past weekend,” Marcos Charles, Executive Associate Director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, wrote this week in an email to agency staff, according to The New York Times.

“Through your dedication, professionalism, and unwavering commitment to our mission, enforcement and removal operations achieved remarkable operational results,” Charles wrote.

Last Year, White House adviser Stephen Miller instituted a 3,000 daily arrest quota for ICE, which tanked agency morale.

ICE has since more than doubled its staffing levels by hiring thousands of new officers. The agency has also received a flood of billions of dollars in funding.