WASHINGTON — With less than four weeks until the midterm elections, immigration agents across the country have been told to find 1,000 more people to arrest every day. Leaders of Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave the verbal directive on Tuesday, restoring a goal of 3,000 daily arrests that the agency has struggled to meet, CNN reported, citing two sources familiar with the instruction.
ICE had recently been taking about 2,000 people into custody a day, a level officials had wanted to hold. Agents were also told to aim for 19,000 arrests a week, a figure that allows for lighter weekend activity and fewer officers in the field, one of the sources told CNN.
The Department of Homeland Security disputes the framing. A spokesperson told CNN there are “NO quotas on arrests” and said the agency had been strengthened under President Donald Trump. Senior officials have repeatedly described the figure as a goal rather than a quota, and said agents are not punished for missing it.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made the same point on CNN last month. “I have never talked to anybody at the White House about any quota. We do our job every single day and we do it effectively,” he said. Mullin has faced pressure from the top before, with reports in August that Trump was growing frustrated with the pace of the department’s work.
The number matters because of how it is reached. CNN reported in 2025, when the White House first set the 3,000-a-day goal, that meeting it would require more arrests in communities. That push now worries some Republicans, CNN said, because of arrests of people with no criminal records so close to the vote.
The directive also lands on a system already under legal strain. The 4th Circuit became the ninth court in a row to block the administration’s no-bond detention policy last month, meaning more arrests could mean more bond hearings rather than faster removals. In Texas, an ICE shooting of a Venezuelan delivery driver in Austin brought demands for an independent inquiry.
Civil rights groups are watching election day closely. They have already sued to keep armed ICE agents away from polling places, arguing that a visible enforcement presence could deter eligible voters in immigrant communities.
What remains unclear is whether the new goal is achievable. ICE mostly fell short of the 3,000 mark in 2025, even after Border Patrol agents were sent to cities across the country, and this directive was given verbally rather than in writing.
