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Overhead closeup of documents. The top document is entitled "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement" with the United States Department of Homeland Security logo.

ICE arrests fell in August despite show of force in DC, Los Angeles

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Tim Henderson
(Stateline)

Despite the assistance of armed troops in U.S. cities, federal immigration officials recorded fewer daily arrests in August than in July and remain well short of a Trump administration plan for 3,000 arrests a day, according to a new report.

As of Aug. 29, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests averaged 1,055 a day for the month, down 14 percent from 1,124 a day in July, according to data obtained by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. The organization tracks federal immigration data.

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Silhouetted line of people at a fence topped with razor wire at sunrise or sunset.
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“President Trump’s orders recently assigning substantial personnel from the national guard and the U.S. military to target Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. may have been counter-productive in failing to increase total arrests countrywide,” said Susan B. Long, co-founder of TRAC and a professor in the Whitman School of Management, in an e-mail statement.

In a Tuesday decision a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s deployment of Marines and National Guard units to Southern California, where they assisted with immigration and other arrests, was illegal.

In May, Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, told Fox News that the administration was “looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day and President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher.”

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it would give more financial incentives to state and local police to cooperate with ICE, including reimbursement for salary and benefits for officers trained in the 287(g) program to assist ICE in making arrests, and “performance awards” for “successful location of illegal aliens.”

“By joining forces with ICE, you’re not just gaining access to these unprecedented reimbursement opportunities — you’re becoming part of a national effort to ensure the safety of every American family,” ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said in a statement.