Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests were at their highest point in five years last month, while the number of people being deported has amounted to about half of those who were arrested, new internal figures from the agency show.
Data obtained by NBC News shows that ICE agents arrested about 30,000 immigrants in June, the most in one month since the agency started making its reports public in November 2020, with over 18,000 being deported.
In May, ICE arrested roughly 24,000 immigrants, deporting over 15,000.
Immigration attorneys explained that the difference between the arrests and the deportations comes from many who have been arrested but still have pending asylum cases and other orders from immigration judges, which temporarily block their deportations.
President Donald Trump's administration, since February, has averaged about 14,700 deportations per month, coming in below the monthly average of 36,000 in 2013, when the Obama administration had the most deportations.
ICE data show that from February to April 2024, the Biden administration was deporting an average of 12,660 immigrants a month, including a surge of immigrants who were arrested by Customs and Border Protection at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The previous record high for arrests, meanwhile, came in January 2023, when agency data showed ICE arrested 18,170 people.
Meanwhile, the large number of arrests and lower numbers of deportations have resulted in 60,000 being held in detention facilities, while Congress has funded 41,500 beds.
Detained immigrants have complained about the lack of medical care, food, hygiene, and access to bedding and laundry at the holding facilities, but Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said any claim of "overcrowding or subprime conditions is categorically false."
She added in a statement that all detainees "are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers" and said that "as we arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens and public safety threats from the U.S., ICE has worked diligently to obtain greater necessary detention space while avoiding overcrowding."
She also reported that since Trump took office, the administration has deported more than 253,000 immigrants, but did not say if those numbers included people stopped by the Coast Guard, those who left voluntarily, or migrants who were turned around at the border.
The data reviewed by NBC News included people arrested by both ICE and CBP who were returned to their home countries or third countries that agreed to take them in.
Meanwhile, Trump's "one big, beautiful bill" is expected to give ICE another $45 billion in detention funding, which would triple its ability to detain immigrants.
The deportations may also speed up after the Supreme Court's ruling that the administration can deport immigrants to countries other than their own. According to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Guatemala and Honduras have agreed to take back more foreign nationals.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.