ICE Arrests Drop Nearly 12% After Minneapolis Killings and Immigration Shake-Up

ICE arrests across the United States dropped nearly 12% after two U.S. citizens were killed by immigration officers in Minneapolis and the Trump administration replaced one of the public faces of its immigration crackdown.

According to an Associated Press analysis of federal arrest data, the decline followed the late-January deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, which intensified criticism of federal immigration tactics in Minnesota and led to a leadership shift in the operation. Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol commander who had become closely associated with aggressive enforcement actions, was pushed aside, and border czar Tom Homan was sent to the Twin Cities to redirect the strategy.

At the height of the crackdown, ICE arrests peaked at nearly 40,000 nationwide in December and remained close to that level the following month, according to data provided to UC Berkeley's Deportation Data Project and analyzed by AP. After Homan announced a drawdown of immigration agents in Minnesota on Feb. 4, ICE averaged 7,369 weekly arrests nationwide over the next five weeks, down from 8,347 weekly arrests in the previous five weeks.

Bovino had described the strategy as "turn and burn," referring to large, highly visible enforcement actions carried out by teams of agents in places including restaurant kitchens, bus stops, and Home Depot parking lots.

The drop was not uniform.

ICE arrests rose in Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina, and Florida during the five weeks after the leadership change, in some cases reaching their highest weekly levels since the start of Trump's second term. Those increases were offset by steep declines in large states, including Minnesota and Texas, according to AP.

The administration has said its immigration campaign is focused on dangerous criminals. Trump has described the targets as "the worst of the worst," but the arrest data show a more complicated picture. Nationally, 46% of people arrested by ICE in the five weeks before Feb. 4 had no criminal charges or convictions. That share fell to 41% in the five weeks after the drawdown, still above the 35% weekly average since Trump returned to office.

Univision reported that the change in arrest patterns came after Good and Pretti were killed and after Bovino was replaced by Homan and noted that the decline in arrests did not mean enforcement had returned to levels seen under former President Joe Biden.