U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests since President Donald J. Trump took office are already outpacing arrests made in all of 2024, the agency said Wednesday—and the Biden government had been “cooking the books” to produce its numbers. “We have uncovered that the previous administration… was cooking the books on ICE data,” acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told reporters. “They were purposely misleading the American people by categorizing individuals processed and released into the interior of the United States as ICE arrests.”
Lyons confirmed a “comprehensive review was done internally here with ICE,” finding “tens of thousands of cases that were recorded as arrests when, in fact, these instances were illegal aliens that were simply processed and released into the American communities,” he said.
Senior officials report that the majority of the 113,431 arrests made in FY 2024 were so-called “pass-through” arrests, meaning that ICE did not take enforcement action against those migrants and instead released them into the interior. No arrests made by ICE under the Trump administration have been pass-through arrests: “What we are doing now is actual immigration enforcement, not enforcement theater,” an official said.
For interior arrests, ICE made 33,242 at-large arrests in FY 2024. For comparison, officials say ICE made 32,809 arrests from January 20 to March 10, meaning they will surpass the FY 2024 number this week.
The Trump administration says its efforts are already yielding positive results. Just this week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it had replaced the controversial CBP One app with a new CBP Home app that helps facilitate self-deportations.
“After four years of not being allowed to effectively do their jobs, our agents and officers are excited to get to work and fulfill the agency’s mission,” Lyons said.
WOW! A review of DHS & ICE data revealed the Biden admin. was “cooking the books” on illegal migrant arrests.
“They tens of thousands of cases that were labeled as arrests but they were actually illegal aliens who were possessed & released into communities.” pic.twitter.com/YaxddfgKF2
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 12, 2025