ICE arrests in LA plummeted in July but still higher than usual, new data show

Jenny Jarvie, Los Angeles Times on Aug 7, 2025

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LOS ANGELES — Arrests of undocumented immigrants have dropped significantly across the Los Angeles region two months after the Trump administration launched its aggressive mass deportation operation, according to new figures released Wednesday by Homeland Security.

Federal authorities told The Times on July 8 that federal agents had arrested 2,792 undocumented immigrants in the seven counties in and around L.A. since June 6. Homeland Security updated that number Wednesday, indicating that fewer than 1,400 immigrants have been arrested in the region in the last month.

"Since June 6, 2025, ICE and CBP have made a total of 4,163 arrests in the Los Angeles area," Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement provided to The Times.

While 1,371 arrests across the L.A. region since July 8 is still a much higher figure than any recent month before June, it represents a notable drop from the 2,792 arrests during the previous month.

The new figures confirm what many immigration experts suspected: The Trump administration's immigration agenda in L.A. has faltered since federal courts blocked federal agents from arresting people without probable cause to believe they are in the U.S. illegally.

McLaughlin said Wednesday that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem's agenda remained the same.

"Secretary Noem unleashed ICE and CBP to arrest criminal illegal aliens including terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and sexual predators," McLaughlin said in a statement Wednesday. "We will continue to enforce the law and remove the worst of the worst."

Trump administration officials have long maintained they are focused on criminals. But a few days after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller announced in late May he had set a new goal of arresting 3,000 undocumented migrants across the country a day, federal agents fanned out across L.A. to snatch people off the streets and from their workplaces.

White House top border policy advisor Tom Homan suggested federal officials adopted the strategy of raiding streets and workplaces to get around "sanctuary" jurisdictions, such as Los Angeles, that bar municipal resources and personnel from being used for immigration enforcement.

"If we can't arrest them in jail, we'll go out to the communities," Homan told CBS News.

But after local protesters rallied to resist and Donald Trump deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city, the administration's ability to ramp up deportations across L.A. was dealt a blow in the federal courts.

On July 11, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of President Biden, issued a temporary restraining order that blocks federal agents in southern and central California from targeting people based on their race, language, vocation or location without reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

That decision was upheld last Friday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court.

"If, as Defendants suggest, they are not conducting stops that lack reasonable suspicion," the panel wrote, "they can hardly claim to be irreparably harmed by an injunction aimed at preventing a subset of stops not supported by reasonable suspicion."

It's hard to know whether July numbers signal a permanent change in tactics.

On Tuesday, Border Patrol agent carried out a raid at the Home Depot in Westlake, arresting 16 people.

"For those who thought Immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again," acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted on X shortly after the raid. "The enforcement of federal law is not negotiable and there are no sanctuaries from the reach of the federal government."

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said her office was looking into the matter but added: "From the video and from the stills, it looks like the exact same thing that we were seeing before."