Markwayne Marin talks about election integrity and Iranian interference
Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin urged states to ensure elections are held as critics discuss fraud and allegations of Iranian interference.
After a three-month delay, the longest in recent history, the Department of Homeland Security on July 20 released detainer numbers that under Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin have ramped up immigration enforcement again in the interior of the country.
The numbers show that ICE arrests have reached record levels and the number of people in custody has increased again, reversing a decline in detainees, especially those without criminal records.
New data showing increased enforcement activity has put authorities back in the national spotlight following backlash over recent shootings in Texas and Maine. In early 2026, the agency conducted high-profile operations in several cities, sparking calls for greater accountability and transparency in immigration enforcement and sparking a months-long stalemate over the agency’s funding.
Ariel Luis Soto, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said the new numbers show a change in immigration strategy, but the results are the same as before.
“Previous tactics were more visual, more public and controversial. Places and cities opposed to the Trump administration were more targeted,” Luis Soto said. “Now we don’t see much of that strategy…at least until recent deaths, but when you look at the bigger picture, the results haven’t changed much.”
Luis Soto noted that the percentage of detainees without criminal records increased the most under the second Trump administration and remained roughly flat during the first months of the Marin administration.
The new numbers show the average daily number of people booked into custody due to ICE arrests reached more than 1,300 in June, a 32% increase from April, Marin’s first full month.
It’s also the highest monthly amount since 2021, according to a USA TODAY compilation of historical files.
Although the increase is significant, the total number of detainees has increased and the pace of releases has remained roughly flat since the reversal following the January mass shooting in Minneapolis.
A DHS spokesperson said in an email that the agency is delivering in accordance with President Donald Trump’s promise to arrest and deport people with criminal records. The spokesperson noted that most ICE arrests are of people who have been charged with or convicted of a crime. According to the latest data, ICE detainees with no criminal history made up 37% of the detention population, compared to 6% in January 2025.
With data published on July 20, more than 100 days have passed since the last update in April, and the average length of time between releases so far in 2026 is 42 days, nearly triple the previous schedule.
Throughout 2025, Trump’s first year in office, and the four years before that, ICE had been relatively consistent, following Congressional orders and releasing data approximately every two weeks.
“We’ve been flying in the dark for months. It’s been a long time since we really knew what the strategy was and what the administration was doing. So it’s welcome that they’ve finally set out to release this report here,” said David Bier, director of migration studies at the Cato Institute.
Questions about transparency remain on other fronts as well.
A spate of recent shootings has raised questions about why agents were not wearing body cameras, even though federal authorities have promised to equip police officers across the country with them. In response, White House Border Patrol official Tom Homan said on July 19 that ICE would require its agents to record vehicle stops with at least one body camera.
DHS typically publishes additional datasets that dig deeper into other aspects of immigration enforcement, such as arrests and deportations. But authorities have not updated them since the end of 2024, leaving detention management data released on July 20 as the last accountability tool for tracking immigration enforcement, including the number of detainees and the proportion of people with and without criminal records. It also tracks detention registry records that closely match arrestees, but do not include information such as location or whether local law enforcement was involved.
Beer said the detention data “reflects their lack of transparency in not proactively and regularly publishing the mandatory disclosures.” “This rough information only gets us so far. We need more information to properly assess what’s going on.”
