ICE arrests in L.A. plummeted in July but still higher than usual, new data show
The arrests of undocumented immigrants have dropped considerably in the Los Angeles region two months after the Trump administration launched its aggressive mass deportation operation, according to new figures published Wednesday by Homeland Security.
Federal authorities told Times on July 8 that federal agents arrested 2,792 undocumented immigrants in the seven counties of Los Angeles and around June 6. Homeland Security updated this issue on Wednesday, indicating that less than 1,400 immigrants were arrested in the region during the last month.
“Since June 6, 2025, ICE and CBP have made a total of 4,163 arrests in the Los Angeles region,” said internal security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement provided to Times.
While 1,371 arrests in the Los Angeles region since July 8 are still a much higher figure than all recent months before June, it represents a notable decline compared to the 2,792 arrests in the previous month.
The new figures confirm what many immigration experts suspected: the Trump administration’s immigration program in Los Angeles failed because the federal courts prevented federal agents from arresting people without reason likely to believe that they are in the United States illegally.
McLaughlin said on Wednesday that the agenda of internal security secretary Kristi Noem remained the same.
“Secretary Noem launched ice cream and the CBP to stop illegal criminal foreigners, including terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles and sex predators,” McLaughlin said in a statement on Wednesday. “We will continue to apply the law and withdraw the worst from the worst.”
Trump administration officials have long argued that they are focusing on criminals. But a few days after the deputy chief of staff of the White House, Stephen Miller, announced at the end of May together A new objective of stopping 3,000 undocumented migrants across the country per day, federal agents have crossed Los Angeles to tear off people from the street and their workplaces.
Top Border Homan’s political adviser, Top Border Homan, suggested that federal officials have adopted the street and workplace RAID strategy to bypass the “sanctuar” courts, such as Los Angeles, which prevent municipal resources and staff from being used for the application of immigration.
“If we cannot stop them in prison, we will go out in the communities,” said Homan CBS News.
But after the local demonstrators rallied to resist and Trump deployed the National Guard and the US Marines in the city, the administration’s ability to increase deportations through Los Angeles was a carrier before the federal courts.
On July 11, the American district judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, appointed by President Biden, made a temporary ban prescription This prevents federal agents from the south and the center of California from targeting people according to their race, their language, their vocation or their location without reasonable suspicion that they are in the United States illegally.
This decision was kept Last Friday, by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States. He is probably on appeal to the Supreme Court.
“If, as the defendants suggest, they do not lead stops that lack reasonable suspicion,” wrote the panel, “they can hardly claim to be irreparably injured by an injunction aimed at preventing a subset of judgments not supported by reasonable suspicions.”
It is difficult to know if the July figures report a permanent change in tactics.
On Tuesday, agent Border Patrol made a raid at the Home Depot in Westlake, arresting 16 people.
“For those who thought that the application of immigration had stopped in southern California, think again”, acting in us. Bill Essayli posted on X shortly after the raid. “The application of federal law is not negotiable and there are no sanctuaries of the scope of the federal government.”
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said that his office examined the question but added: “Video and fixed images, it looks exactly like the same thing we saw before.”
