California Illegal Immigrant Arrests On The Rise With Renewed Federal West Coast Focus

The number of illegal immigrant arrests in California has skyrocketed since June, according to new federal data.

Delivering on a campaign promise, President Donald Trump signed off on several Executive Orders in January to crack down on illegal immigration and illegal migrants. By April, over 66,000 illegal immigrants were arrested. Less than two months later, that figure topped 100,000. Current estimates show that ICE will likely have, at the current pace, 260,000 arrests by the end of the year. In any case, this is likely to be a record year for illegal immigrant arrests.

Along with current July figures, the number of ICE arrests has already topped the 113,000 total arrested in 2024, and will likely beat the previous high totals of 170,000 in 2023 and 160,000 in 2018 by the end of the summer. In May alone, there were 23,564 nationwide arrests by ICE, compared to just over 8,000 in May 2024.

However, California arrests , and indeed, West Coast arrests as a whole, have been somewhat lacking. While there were ICE raids and arrests occurring in California before June, ICE instead focused on the East Coast, Midwest, and South. Of the 100,000 or so arrested before early June this year, Southern California only was at a few thousand arrests. The San Francisco Bay Area had only 1,730 arrests over the same time period. San Diego only saw about 1,000.

In total, according to the Deportation Data Project, ICE arrested 5,800 illegal immigrants in California from January to early June. While it was a significant 123% increase from 2024, it was still at only around 6% of the total nationwide arrests. As California has just under a quarter of the nation’s entire illegal immigrant population, this was well under where they were projected to be at.

However, new directives with a heavy West Coast focus were made in early June. The huge influx of ICE and other federal officers, mixed in with National Guard troops and Marines called up by President Trump, were immediately noticed. In Los Angeles, the increased number of arrests caused several days of protests and riots. Despite this, the increased presence continued on into July. Earlier this week, the June-July total so far was announced, dwarfing the number of arrests made in the first 5 months of the year.

“Since operations began in June, ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection CBP have arrested 2,792 illegal aliens in the L.A. area,” announced ICE in a statement earlier this week.

That number has since climbed to over 3,000 in only a few days following 2 raids on Cannabis farms in Ventura County that resulted in 200 being arrested, along with other arrests. And it isn’t just L.A. Every region has seen spikes in arrests. San Diego also matched the number of arrests in June to the first 5 months of the year. San Francisco has seen arrests rise despite a growing number of protests in the city. In addition, more strategic arrests are being made, including at courthouses.

In total, ICE has tripled their West Coast presence since June. And for arrests in California, there seems to be no signs of stopping, even with local leaders begging illegal immigrants to stay home and not get caught, and some, like L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, trying to give assistance to affected illegal immigrants.

California started off June as having low illegal migrant arrest rates, but as of mid-July, they are rapidly catching up to nationwide averages.