In July 2024, immigration enforcement in the United States reached a new level, with individuals detained solely for civil immigration violations, without criminal conviction or pending charges, representing for the first time more than half of all those detained during the current administration. The daily average of arrests exceeded 1,580, totaling 49,571 detentions for the month, a 15% increase from June and a 70% increase compared to February. More than 800 people without criminal records were arrested on average every day. The data comes from the Deportation Data Project, an initiative affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Migration operations have increasingly concentrated within communities, not just at prisons. In June and July, at least 45,300 people were arrested directly on streets, in neighborhoods, and in public spaces, nearly half of all detentions during the period. The strategy includes less visible approaches, such as traffic checkpoints, arrests at airports, and actions in immigration courts.
In Florida, a state whose legislation requires local police forces to cooperate with ICE, the increase was even more pronounced. Community detentions during June and July were nearly four times the average of the previous six months. In Miami, the monthly average of arrests jumped from 115 to 715, and in Jacksonville it went from about 15 to 165. In south Florida alone, ICE would have recorded nearly 6,000 new detention scheduling appointments in July.
The American government states that the priority remains removing from the streets people considered threats to public safety, but the data itself shows that those convicted of violent crimes represented only about 4% of those detained in July. The Department of Homeland Security emphasizes that the "non-criminal" classification refers only to the absence of criminal records in the United States, not excluding crimes committed in other countries.
