ICE Tactics Deflate Media and Activist Outrage and Boost Arrest Numbers



Mikala Compton/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images

by Warner Todd Huston 25 Sep 2026

Deportations officers have changed how they arrest illegal migrants, successfully expanding detention numbers while deflating media outrage and nullifying activist protests, the New York Times complains.

Starting in June, the numbers of illegals arrested and detained for deportation proceedings soared to close to 50,000 arrests per month — with August even exceeding that number — however, the violent protests seen last year were oddly absent from the media during the summer surge. It wasn’t because supporters of illegals tired of the pursuit, but because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made an important and effective change in its deployment policies in pursuit of fulfilling the president’s 2024 election mandate to implement mass deportations.

The change in tactics gave lower priority to the fixed bases in big cities that were giving left-wingers tempting targets for mounting protests, instead sending ICE officers out into the wider countryside to confront illegals.

ICE officers turned up in small towns, at suburban construction sites, truck stops, laundromats, outside airports, hospitals, near schools, and more. They raided both small and large businesses and fanned out to nearly every state, from desert towns in Arizona, the plains of Wyoming, and throughout the south, the New York Times recently reported.

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, said that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deployed several new tactics that gave the left fewer opportunities to grandstand.

“This gradual rise everywhere all at once, through a lot of means, is enabling the operation to fly under the radar,” he told the Times.

The shift made for fewer raucous headlines in the news media, but still very quietly allowed the Department of Homeland Security to pump up its deportation numbers. DHS added in a statement, “This is promises made and promises kept in action. The results speak for themselves.”

ICE also made much greater use of its cooperative agreements with local law enforcement agencies all across the country instead of launching high profile named operations in deep blue cities where extremist, pro-illegal migrant groups are primarily located.

Arrest numbers soared in states that had not yet seen large-scale operations, including Oregon, Montana, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont, and New Jersey.

In June, DHS highlighted the fact that deportation flights had reached a record high.

“DEPORTATION FLIGHTS AT A RECORD HIGH,” DHS wrote in a post on X, replying to a post in which the Washington Examiner shared that nearly 900,000 illegal aliens have been deported since the start of the Trump administration in January 2025.

DHS added that the American people gave the Trump administration a “mandate to arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens,” adding that under President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the agency would “continue to deliver.”

“Our message is clear: LEAVE NOW or we will find you, arrest you, and deport you,” the post on X added.

Homeland Security
@DHSgov
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DEPORTATION FLIGHTS AT A RECORD HIGH.

The American people gave us a mandate to arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our country — and under @POTUSTrump and@SecMullinDHS, we’ll continue to deliver.Our message is clear:

LEAVE NOW or we will find you, arrest you, and

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Washington Examiner
@dcexaminer

Nearly 900,000 deported by ICE under Trump as flights soared in May to new high

https://trib.al/JbzCkfY

11:44 AM · Jun 20, 2026

ICE reported that 49,000 illegals were taken into custody in June, and in August they took in a record of almost 51,000.

https://www.breitbart.com/immigratio...rrest-numbers/