This Week by the {Immigration} Numbers (July 31, 2026)

ICYMI, the last numbers on: arrests at a record pace, asylum cases rerouted to judges, unaccompanied kids losing lawyers, more denaturalizations, enforcement deaths, and courts drawing new limits.

Welcome to the weekly segment called This Week by the {Immigration} Numbers. I’ll highlight some of the main takeaways from the week’s news that you might have missed, but do it in a unique way. Rather than try to summarize everything, I’ll pick a handful of figures each week that best capture where things are moving, explain why they matter, and provide a source where you can learn more. If you have a number to add to the mix or have a question about any of the numbers here, let me know in the comments.

New starting today, I am including social-media-ready images and explanations for each of the data points so that you can help spread this information beyond Substack. Wherever you share, consider tagging me and linking back to this Substack. I’m on Bluesky, X, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, Mastodon, and Facebook.

1,474

The average number of people ICE arrested per day over the first eleven days of July, the highest daily pace of this administration.

ICE released enforcement data for the first time since April, and it shows the agency arresting an average of 1,474 people a day through July 11. That is the highest daily pace since the president returned to office. The numbers point to a shift toward higher-volume operations that rely less on the large, visible raids that defined the spring. A higher daily arrest rate means more people moving into detention and removal proceedings every week, regardless of how visible the operations are.

• Reznick, A. (2026, July 24). ICE released data for the first time since April. It shows ramped up arrests, detention. KJZZ.

444,000

The number of asylum cases a new federal rule could redirect from asylum officers straight to immigration judges.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services estimates that up to 444,000 cases could be affected by a rule announced this week that eliminates the asylum officer interview and sends applicants directly to immigration court. That interview has long been the first and less adversarial step where many claims are resolved. Routing cases straight to a backlogged court system could slow decisions and place applicants in front of judges without that earlier screening. The change may reshape how hundreds of thousands of people experience the asylum process, depending on how the rule is implemented and challenged.

• Prager, S. (2026, July 27). New Trump Asylum Rule Would Send Hundreds of Thousands of Applicants Straight to Deportation Proceedings. Common Dreams.

24,000

The number of unaccompanied children who could lose federally funded legal representation when a contract expires today.

More than 24,000 unaccompanied children facing deportation stand to lose access to federally funded legal help as the contract funding that work expires on July 31. Children have no right to appointed counsel in immigration court, so this program has been the main way many of them get a lawyer at all. Without it, thousands of kids may face a judge alone, some of them too young to understand what is being asked of them. Whether the funding is restored will decide if those children keep representation in the weeks ahead.

• Vives, R. (2026, July 30). More than 24,000 immigrant children could lose legal representation as a federal contract expires. Los Angeles Times.

460,000

The number of leads the Office of Refugee Resettlement has shared with immigration enforcement since January 2025.

Internal data shows that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency responsible for the care of unaccompanied children, has passed more than 460,000 leads to immigration enforcement since January 2025. ORR exists to protect the children in its custody, and channeling this volume of information into deportation operations turns a child welfare agency into an arm of enforcement. It also raises real questions about the safety of the families who come forward to claim these kids, since a parent or relative who steps in to sponsor a child now risks handing their own information to ICE. A system that makes claiming a child dangerous will leave more children stuck in federal custody.

• Malleck, J. (2026, July 29). US Child Migrant Agency Tipped Off ICE, Leading to Arrests. Documented.

90

The number of people the Justice Department has moved to strip of citizenship since the start of 2025.

The Justice Department has filed to revoke the citizenship of nearly 90 people since the beginning of 2025, with at least 89 cases filed in federal court as of July 22. Denaturalization was rare for decades and is now being used at a pace with little modern precedent. It reaches people who already completed the full process of becoming citizens, which puts the security of naturalized status itself in question for a growing number of Americans. Civil denaturalization also carries fewer protections than a criminal case, since there is no right to appointed counsel and a lower burden of proof in some proceedings. The trend signals a broader effort to treat citizenship as reversible.

• Cann, C. (2026, July 26). Citizenship revoked? Trump administration ramps up controversial plan. USA Today.

4

The number of people who died in connection with federal immigration enforcement in a single month.

Over roughly one month, four people died in incidents tied to federal immigration enforcement. Two were shot by ICE agents, in Maine and Texas. One was hit by a truck while fleeing an operation in Florida. One died in ICE custody after being denied medication. Together these deaths track the same expansion in enforcement the other numbers this week describe, and behind this figure are four people who are now dead.

• The Intercept Briefing. (2026, July 24). Trump’s National Killer Police Force. The Intercept.

$776M

The additional amount ICE may pay to extend a no-bid contract at one of its largest Texas detention centers.

ICE plans to extend Amentum Services’ no-bid contract to run Camp East Montana through September 2027, at a potential additional cost of $776 million to taxpayers. Camp East Montana is one of the agency’s largest detention sites, and a no-bid extension keeps a single company in place without competing offers that might lower the price. The figure shows how detention spending compounds once a facility is running, since the cost of one more year at a single site runs higher than the $452 million contract that first installed the operator in March. Detention expansion is now as much a fiscal story as an enforcement one.

• Foley, R. J. (2026, July 27). ICE extends no-bid contract for major detention center in Texas. ABC News.

132,000

The number of people who have purportedly left the country through the administration’s self-deportation program.

Of the more than 200,000 people who signed up for Project Homecoming through CBP One, the administration’s “self-deportation” program, about 132,000 have perhaps left the United States, with another 70,000 waiting to depart. The completion figure runs well below the 200,000-plus sign-up number the administration tends to promote as evidence the program is working and the administration has not released data to confirm these numbers.

• Golding, B. (2026, July 28). More than 200,000 migrants have taken Trump’s offer to pay them for self-deporting. The Independent.

5

The number of federal appeals courts that have now rejected the administration’s claim that it can detain immigrants without a bond hearing.

The Ninth Circuit became the fifth federal appeals court to reject the administration’s argument that it may hold immigrants in the interior of the country without a bond hearing. Five circuits lining up the same way deepens a split that the Supreme Court will likely have to resolve. For now, people in those circuits may have a stronger claim to a hearing before a judge, depending on the facts of their case. A Trump-appointed judge joined the most recent decision, which makes the ruling harder to wave off as merely partisan.

• Crepeau, M. (2026, July 30). Trump Immigration Detention Authority Rejected by Appeals Court. Bloomberg Law.

287(g)

The federal program authorizing local police to enforce immigration law that Maine has now effectively banned.

A new Maine law effectively bans 287(g) agreements, the federal contracts that let local police carry out immigration enforcement. Only one Maine agency, the Wells Police Department, had ever signed one, and it withdrew last October, so the practical effect is less about terminating existing agreements than about preventing future participation. The law puts Maine among the states building legal walls between local policing and federal immigration enforcement, at a moment when the administration is suing other states to force the opposite. State law is becoming one of the few remaining checks on how far federal enforcement can reach into local communities.

• Fonseca, C. (2026, July 29). New laws in Maine taking effect Wednesday limit police cooperation, information sharing with immigration agents. The Boston Globe.

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