U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 51,000 people in July, ABC News reported, citing sources familiar with the data. The number is the highest monthly total in Department of Homeland Security history,
The record comes as ICE quietly expands enforcement operations across the country under President Donald Trump.
ICE also increased arrests at airports during July. Agency data reviewed by ABC News showed that more than 30 people were arrested at airports during the month.
The new numbers follow a sharp increase in immigration enforcement during Trump’s second term.
In June, DHS said 356,389 people had been deported so far during the current fiscal year, according to figures posted by ICE.
A law enforcement source told ABC News that ICE has been quietly increasing its operations around the country.
Despite the record July arrest total, some Trump allies argue that the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts still do not go far enough.
Mike Howell, president of the Trump-aligned Oversight Project, said the numbers remain too low compared with the number of migrants who entered the country during the Biden administration and Trump’s pledge to carry out mass deportations.
“The point is the numbers remain wildly disproportionately low to the scale of illegals let in by Biden and the promise of mass deportation,” Howell told ABC News.
Howell said he believes worksite enforcement should become a central part of the administration’s strategy.
He also said he is concerned that deportation figures could be used to support an immigration compromise. Howell said he is suing DHS in an effort to obtain more detailed enforcement data.
DHS, meanwhile, defended the administration’s tougher approach to immigration enforcement at airports.
“DHS reversed the horrendous Biden-era policy that allowed aliens in our country illegally to jet around our country,” a DHS spokesperson told ABC News.
The spokesperson said the Trump administration would no longer allow immigrants who are in the country illegally to freely travel by air.
“This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport,” the spokesperson said.
The July figures mark another sign that the Trump administration is expanding immigration enforcement as it works to carry out the president’s mass deportation agenda.