WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 49,571 people in July, its biggest single-month total since October 2022 and the largest of President Trump's second term, according to federal data released this week to the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA. Removals reached nearly 34,000, also a second-term high.

The July numbers make the month the first of the current administration in which people with only civil immigration violations — rather than criminal charges or convictions — made up a majority of those arrested. CBS News, citing the same data set, reported that ICE arrested a record average of more than 800 people without criminal records a day. The Guardian's analysis put the majority at 51 percent.

The 2,000-a-day target

The surge follows a White House directive that ICE reach a target of 2,000 arrests a day, backed by a $70 billion Department of Homeland Security funding boost, the Guardian reported. The agency is still short of that number in aggregate terms but has visibly repositioned to close the gap. CBS put the July daily arrest average at more than 1,580; the Guardian, using the same data set, put the equivalent figure at roughly 1,500. Both are records for the current administration.

How the arrests are happening

The July increase has come without a return to the militarized, high-profile raids that defined enforcement earlier in the second term. Immigration attorneys told the Guardian that the operation has shifted to quieter, more distributed tactics.

"The way that people are being detained is far less flashy, but we are still continuing to see arrests," said Melissa Shepard, director of legal services at the southern California-based ImmDef, in the Guardian's account. "It's just on a quieter scale instead of, you know, 10, 12 officers making one arrest, you have a handful of officers pulling someone over."

CBS reported that ICE's street arrests in cities and states the administration classifies as sanctuary jurisdictions rose 27 percent in June and July.

What the administration says

DHS says the higher share of non-criminal arrests does not tell the full story of who is being targeted.

"ICE enforces the law as written. What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is whether or not they are illegally in the U.S. — full stop," a DHS spokesperson told CBS News. "Many of the individuals that are counted as 'non-criminals' are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just don't have a rap sheet in the U.S."

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, at a state governors' conference earlier this month, tied the agency's presence to local cooperation. "I'm just saying, let's work to get the worst of the worst off the streets and then you won't see me in your cities and states like you do as much," Mullin said, according to CBS. "You probably won't even see us at all."

The counter-count

The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a narrower category of "violent" convictions. Under that definition, CBS reported, roughly 6 percent of all people booked into ICE detention under the current administration have such a conviction, and 4 percent of those taken into custody in July did. The data set does not include convictions in other countries; CBS said it had asked DHS to provide any such information.

Airports and courthouses

Immigrants are increasingly being arrested at their mandated ICE check-ins, at traffic stops, at their homes and at U.S. airports, the Guardian reported. ImmDef's Shepard said the group had begun advising clients with pending or valid immigration status — travelers who are legally cleared to fly — to avoid airline trips because of the surge in airport enforcement.

Attorneys have also begun urging clients with Temporary Protected Status to seek alternative legal footing. The Supreme Court cleared the administration to strip TPS from 50,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians, the Guardian reported, and advocacy groups in Springfield, Ohio, said Haitians with TPS had been called into ICE offices and fitted with ankle monitors.

What happens next

The White House has said it wants the 2,000-a-day pace to become routine. Congressional Democrats and immigrant-rights groups are pressing for oversight of the tactics and data behind the increase. The next monthly release from the Deportation Data Project, covering August, will show whether July was the new baseline or an inflection point.