As Donald Trump’s administration continues its mass deportation push, more than 56,000 people are being held in immigration detention, the highest level in years and what may be an all-time record.
There were 56, 397 people in immigrant detention as over June 15, according to a Syracuse University database. Internal government data obtained by CBS News suggests an even higher figure, with roughly 59,000 immigrants behind bars — or 140 percent of the agency’s ostensible capacity to hold them.
The figures top both the 39,000 people held in the final days of Joe Biden’s administration, and the previous recent record of 55,654 in August 2019, set during the first Trump administration.
Among those in detention now, 47 percent have no criminal record whatsoever, and fewer than 30 percent have been convicted of crimes, according to analysis from The Independent.
The Trump administration has achieved these staggering figures by both shifting tactics and major resources to immigration enforcement.
One key plank has been aggressive legal maneuvering, declaring the United States under “invasion” from foreign gang members, now labelled “terrorists” as a means to invoke emergency powers like the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport accused members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
The administration also revoked temporary legal status granted to more than 800,000 immigrants who fled violence, disasters and instability in countries like Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
The White House has also rolled back protections barring immigration arrests at sensitive locations like churches and bumped up the pace of immigration raids in the interior of the country, with more than 70 percent of detainees being arrested outside of border areas, per the CBS data.
Those arrests have ranged from mass operations in Home Depot parking lots to nationwide arrests at courthouses and immigration check-ins with federal officials.
To carry out its immigration powers, the administration has tapped resources from other agencies, including deploying federal troops to Los Angeles over the objections of California officials in response to widespread protests against immigration raids, directing federal law enforcement like the FBI and DEA to focus on immigration, and expanding partnerships with local police departments and jails to pursue and detain undocumented immigrants.
Even this frenetic pace of enforcement, with officials notching roughly 1,200 arrests per day in June, looks set to expand.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have reportedly urged immigration officials to hit 3,000 arrests per day.
Immigration and border enforcement already make up two-thirds of federal law enforcement spending, and the Trump administration’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” spending package could direct another $168 billion towards immigration and border law enforcement over the next five years, an unprecedented increase.
After briefly flirting with an enforcement pause on undocumented immigrants working in agriculture and hospitality, the administration has said it will continue worksite raids.
Trump’s allies, such as Republican leadership in Florida, have also joined the effort. The Sunshine State is reclaiming public land in the Everglades to build “Alligator Alcatraz” to detain thousands of immigrants. The project is expected to cost roughly $450 million a year to operate.
The push to expand immigration operations has alarmed critics and observers, who say the nation’s immigration detention system’s long record of poor conditions and medical neglect is only getting worse under this pressure.
“The number of people in ICE detention is a grim indicator of Trump’s cruel mass detention and deportation agenda at work, targeting people based on where they work and what they look like, destabilizing communities, separating families, and putting people’s lives at risk,” Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, said in a statement to The Independent.
“At least 10 people have died in ICE custody since Trump was inaugurated,” she added.
The arrest spree has also strained ICE’s existing budget. The agency is reportedly $1 billion over its annual budget and set to run out of allocated funds as soon as next month.
