United States: Detentions Resurge in New ICE Offensive
Featured image: ICE agents walk a detainee out of the county government center in Ventura, California. Source: The Guardian
In the past months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions across the US has once again surged. Data from the Deportation Data Project shows that as of midnight on August 5 – the last point from which confirmed official data exist – over 65,000 people were held in custody in ICE facilities throughout the United States.
Since June 2025, the number of people detained by ICE has – on a nearly daily basis – exceeded the previous all-time high set in August 2019. On August 5, 1,764 people were registered into ICE facilities, reaching levels not reached since 2012. This comes following directives for ICE agents to put 80% of their agents on arrest operations.
ICE claims in a statement to have arrested 1,300 people in the first two weeks of August, in an operation named “Operation Safe Community – Washington, D.C.” The operation also extended across Virginia and Maryland, with arrests reported in Manassas, Alexandria, Fairfax County, and Hyattsville, Maryland, as well as in Richmond, Chesterfield, Harrisonburg, and Wicomico County. Similarly, in an operation of the same name in Atlanta, Georgia, ICE arrested more than 1,200 immigrants in July.
Since January 2025, 46 people have been murdered in ICE custody or detention. There have also been several murders by ICE agents on the streets, as in January of 2026, giving rise to widespread demonstrations throughout the US after the two blatant murders by ICE officers in Minnesota.
The condition of the 403 active ICE detention facilities, as well as the abuse carried out against the inmates, have been widely denounced – with reports of hunger strikes by prisoners and demonstrations outside the facilities.
