At the height of the immigration crackdown, masked officers in carloads were a frequent sight on Minneapolis streets, while thousands were arrested weekly in Texas, Florida, and California. The strategy, dubbed 'turn and burn' by Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, involved relentless shows of force and agents descending on restaurants, bus stops, and Home Depot parking lots.
In December, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests peaked at nearly 40,000 nationwide, with similar numbers in January, according to data from UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project analyzed by the Associated Press. However, the killings of two American citizens by immigration officers in Minneapolis in late January, coupled with growing concerns over heavy-handed tactics, triggered a shake-up of top immigration officials. In the following weeks, ICE arrests dropped by an average of nearly 12%.
Public polling indicated that many felt the enforcement operation in Minnesota went too far, a factor that may have contributed to the abrupt firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in early March. Bovino, the public face of the crackdown, was pushed aside after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Border czar Tom Homan was dispatched to the Twin Cities to chart a new course, announcing a drawdown of agents in Minnesota on Feb. 4.
An AP analysis of ICE arrest records shows the department averaged 7,369 weekly arrests nationwide in the five weeks after Homan’s announcement, down from 8,347 per week in the previous five weeks. Despite the drop, these numbers remain higher than during much of Trump’s first year of his second term and dramatically exceed those under the Biden administration. However, the decline was not uniform across the country.
ICE arrests rose significantly in Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina, and Florida during that period, with Kentucky’s weekly arrests more than doubling to 86 by early March. These increases were offset by steep drops in large states like Minnesota and Texas.
The Trump administration insists it is targeting the most violent criminals living illegally in the U.S., calling them 'the worst of the worst.' While this description fits some cases, the reality is more complex. Many of the toughest criminals were already in prison, but a significant portion of those arrested had no criminal history. Nationally, 46% of ICE arrests in the five weeks before Feb. 4 involved individuals with no criminal charges or convictions, dropping to 41% in the subsequent five weeks. However, this is still above the 35% weekly average since Trump returned to office. In several states, the share of noncriminals arrested actually increased after Feb. 4.
Thousands of federal court filings provide a window into the ongoing deportation tactics. For example, a 21-year-old Honduran man with no criminal record was arrested on Feb. 22 during a traffic stop in suburban San Diego. He is the father of three U.S. citizen children and had been under ICE surveillance before officers in tactical gear pulled him over. Similarly, a 33-year-old Venezuelan doctor from a medically underserved region in South Texas was arrested earlier this month with her five-year-old U.S. citizen daughter while en route to her husband’s asylum hearing. Officials said she was arrested for overstaying her visa.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, notes signs of change in lower arrest and detention numbers but cautions it is too early to determine if these shifts are permanent. 'The Trump administration says: ‘We’re not slowing down,’ ‘Nothing has changed,’ in immigration enforcement,' he said. 'But it’s very clear that they have pulled back from some of the tactics of Operation Metro Surge,' the crackdown that swept Minneapolis.
