ICE Reports Record Deportations and Arrests in Fiscal Year 2026, Homeland Security Says

Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported a record 483,200 people in fiscal year 2026, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday, surpassing the agency's previous high of 442,640 set in fiscal year 2025. ICE also reported more than 491,000 immigration arrests in the year ending Sept. 30, including nearly 475,000 administrative arrests, which involve civil violations rather than criminal charges. DHS said these were the highest totals in the agency's 23-year history. The figures reflect President Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations. They arrive a week after Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections. Trump has weighed possible immigration negotiations with Democrats and has acknowledged that parts of his deportation campaign may have gone too far, while also elevating Stephen Miller, an architect of his restrictive immigration policies, to White House chief of staff. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement that September 2026 was ICE's best September for arrests.

Left-leaning CBS News leads with the record deportation figure, which it says it obtained from DHS, and quickly turns to politics. Its headline says Trump "faces reckoning" over the crackdown. It stresses the expansion of enforcement far from the border, voters' unease, the midterm losses, Trump's admission that the campaign may have overreached, and Miller's promotion. It explains administrative arrests but features no administration quotes in the opening. Right-leaning Daily Wire also leads with the records, but its headline emphasizes that Trump's ICE "blew past" Biden. It reports that arrests exceeded the combined total of Biden's three full fiscal years and quotes Mullin, who praised ICE agents and said ICE had been "unleashed." It mentions the midterm losses and possible talks with Democrats only briefly, as context. Both sides agree on the core numbers, the 442,640 prior record and the midterm backdrop. They differ in framing: CBS stresses political cost and doubts about the crackdown, while Daily Wire emphasizes achievement and comparison with Biden. The AP report, in its excerpt, matches the shared facts.