ICE Posts Third Straight Monthly Record: 50,925 Arrests in August

The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that ICE arrested 50,925 illegal aliens in August, a new monthly high. That figure passed July’s 50,208 and June’s 43,900. It is the third straight month in which ICE set a record and the second month in a row above 50,000. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the totals were “promises made and promises kept.” “If you are in the country illegally, LEAVE NOW. If not, we will find you, arrest you, and deport you.” The department also restated its self-deportation offer, including a stipend and a paid flight. DHS listed August cases that included convictions for murder, child pornography, sexual assault of a minor, DUI manslaughter, and conspiracy to distribute fentanyl. The national count includes New York’s July 27–Aug. 29 Operation Rotten Apple, which DHS previously put at 2,197 arrests.

Separately, the Center for Immigration Studies analyzed the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and reported that the foreign-born population fell 2.9 million from January 2025 through July 2026. Authors Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler wrote that the drop follows an 8.3 million increase in the prior four years. They said the recent decline indicates net migration turned negative for the first time since the 1930s. Their preliminary estimate is that the illegal population fell about 2.3 million, from 15.8 million in January 2025 to 13.5 million in July 2026 after an undercount adjustment. They said the decrease is concentrated among Latin American non-citizens who arrived in 1980 or later, a group that overlaps heavily with illegal residents, and that the net change reflects new arrivals offset by removals, voluntary departures, legalizations, and deaths. CIS noted survey caveats, including response rates and the possibility that some immigrants are less willing to identify as foreign-born during heightened enforcement.

Independent researchers who work from ICE extracts released through the Deportation Data Project have published lower July totals in some files and have reported that a rising share of summer arrests involved people with no criminal conviction on ICE’s records. DHS frames the campaign as targeting people here illegally, including those with serious convictions. Arrests fell early in 2026 after high-profile incidents, then climbed through the summer as funding and 287(g) partnerships expanded. The August record and the CIS household-survey decline are separate measures: one is monthly interior arrests; the other is a change in the estimated stock of foreign-born residents over 18 months.