Immigration enforcement has become less visible in some places, even as ICE arrests have surged to levels not seen earlier in President Donald Trump’s second term.
You may be seeing fewer images of large immigration raids than you did earlier in the Trump administration.
That does not mean immigration enforcement has slowed down.
ICE made 49,571 arrests in July 2026, the highest monthly total of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to the Deportation Data Project. June had 43,021 arrests, while July’s total was about 70% higher than February’s 29,241. Deportation Data Project’s 2026 ICE arrest analysis
For Californians, however, the more important question is not simply how many people ICE is arresting.
It is where those arrests are happening, how they happen and what role California’s own laws allow state and local agencies to play.
New data about Los Angeles and Southern California provide part of that answer.
The summer increase was substantial. ICE arrests reached new highs in both June and July, even as high-profile, militarized operations involving ICE and Customs and Border Protection became less prominent than they had been earlier in the administration.
The percentage of people arrested who had criminal convictions also fell.
In July, people with criminal convictions accounted for 27% of ICE arrests leading to book-ins, the lowest percentage in the available data. That does not mean everyone else had no criminal history; ICE’s data distinguish among people with convictions, pending charges and neither convictions nor pending charges.
The numbers show an increase in enforcement. They do not, by themselves, explain the circumstances of every individual arrest or establish whether a particular arrest was lawful.
A September 24 analysis by the Deportation Data Project provides a closer look at Southern California.
The report examined ICE arrests across the Los Angeles Field Office’s seven-county area: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
The report found that at-large arrests, arrests made outside traditional transfers from jails or prisons, were at the center of the Los Angeles enforcement surge.
At-large arrests increased from fewer than 200 per month in 2024 to more than 1,700 in June 2025.
The arrests were recorded in neighborhoods, courthouses and at ICE check-ins.
Los Angeles accounted for about one-third of at-large arrests in the region. But the activity was not limited to the city.
The Deportation Data Project found arrests in essentially every other city and town in the Los Angeles ICE area of responsibility, including places such as Santa Ana, San Bernardino, Santa Maria and Camarillo.
That changes how Californians should think about the enforcement story.
It is not only about large federal operations that attract cameras. It is also about arrests occurring across a broad geographic area through different forms of federal enforcement.
Less visible does not mean less active
The summer data create an important distinction.
Enforcement can become less visible without becoming less active.
The Deportation Data Project found that June and July 2026 produced the highest monthly ICE arrest totals of Trump’s second term while high-profile militarized operations became less prominent.
But the available evidence does not establish that the federal government has formally adopted a strategy designed to conceal immigration enforcement.
Federal officials have discussed changing how some operations are conducted. That is different from proving that reduced visibility is itself the purpose of the policy.
The safest description is therefore straightforward: arrests increased while some of the most visible forms of enforcement became less prominent.
Nationally, ICE has expanded cooperation with state and local law enforcement through programs including 287(g).
Under 287(g), participating state and local officers can perform specified immigration-enforcement functions under federal supervision.
But California has substantial restrictions on that kind of cooperation.
The state’s SB 54, the California Values Act, generally limits state and local law-enforcement agencies from using their resources to investigate, interrogate, detain or arrest people for federal immigration-enforcement purposes, subject to exceptions.
The California Attorney General’s immigration resources and guidance explain those restrictions.
That means national statistics about expanding 287(g) participation should not be presented as evidence that California police departments are broadly being turned into ICE agents.
California can restrict how state and local agencies cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. It cannot prevent ICE, a federal agency, from enforcing federal immigration law in California.
The Los Angeles data show why “ICE raid” can be an incomplete description.
An immigration arrest does not necessarily involve dozens of federal agents arriving in a neighborhood. It can be an at-large arrest, a transfer from criminal custody, an arrest at an ICE check-in or another form of federal enforcement.
That does not mean every traffic stop, police interaction or courthouse visit will lead to immigration detention.
It means the large, highly visible operation is not the only way federal immigration enforcement occurs.
Parriva’s explainer on recent ICE arrest rules in Los Angeles provides more detail about the legal questions surrounding certain warrantless civil immigration arrests in Southern California.
Those rules and court orders can change, and individual cases depend on their circumstances.
What the numbers do and don’t tell us
The current evidence supports several conclusions.
ICE arrests rose sharply in June and July.
July reached a second-term high.
The share of arrests involving people with criminal convictions fell to 27%.
And in Los Angeles, at-large arrests became a major component of enforcement across a seven-county region.
The evidence does not establish that everyone arrested had no criminal history, that every arrest occurred without a warrant, or that every interaction with local police creates an immigration-enforcement risk.
It also does not establish that federal officials deliberately made enforcement less visible.
Those are separate questions requiring separate evidence.
What California families should know
California’s restrictions on local cooperation can provide important protections, but they do not eliminate federal immigration enforcement.
The California Attorney General’s Know Your Immigration Rights resources explain protections involving state and local law enforcement and provide information about finding legal assistance.
Families facing an immigration issue should be especially cautious about relying on social-media posts or people promising to fix an immigration case for money.
For an individual facing detention or removal, the person’s immigration history and court status matter. A qualified immigration attorney or accredited legal-services provider can determine what rights and options apply to that specific case.
We have focused on the past on ICE detention oversight in California and how fear of ICE can affect access to hospitals, schools and 911 provides additional context about what happens after enforcement reaches a community.
The state response is changing, too.
On September 29, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of immigration-related laws addressing issues including detention facilities, federal immigration enforcement and state oversight. Several of the measures are expected to face legal challenges.
The new laws do not change federal immigration law.
They instead use areas of authority California retains over state resources, facilities, records and state and local agencies.
That creates a complicated picture: federal immigration enforcement is expanding in California while California is simultaneously limiting how its own agencies can participate and increasing oversight of federal activity.
The bigger question is no longer just how many arrests ICE makes
The summer numbers show that enforcement did not become less significant simply because some of the biggest operations became less visible.
In Southern California, the newer data show arrests occurring across a large geographic area and through methods that do not always produce the dramatic images associated with a major federal raid.
For California families, the more useful questions are practical:
Where is enforcement occurring? Which agency is involved? What authority does it have? And what does California law require when federal immigration enforcement intersects with a state or local agency?
Those questions will be criticle as ICE’s arrest numbers, California’s new laws and the legal challenges surrounding federal enforcement continue to develop.
