Anti-ICE protesters have spent months showing up to block federal agents from making arrests.
Then Tom Homan got a phone call that made every one of those protests irrelevant.
What ICE figured out this summer is exactly why the left keeps showing up after it is already over.
ICE Breaks Three Straight Monthly Arrest Records Under Tom Homan
ICE arrested 43,021 illegal aliens in June – the highest monthly total in agency history at the time.
July broke that number with 49,571 arrests.
August came in above 50,000 and broke it again.
Before Trump took office, ICE was making roughly 8,000 arrests a month.
The agency is now running at 1,600 arrests per day.
Homan told Newsmax that he got the August numbers that morning.
"Breaking news, August is a historic high," he said. "June, ICE arrested more illegal aliens than at any time in the history of the agency. July, they broke that record. And I just got notified this morning, August, an all-time new record."
More than 50,000 illegal aliens were arrested in August alone, with simultaneous operations running in New York, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, and elsewhere.
"ICE is hitting on all cylinders," Homan said. "President Trump has promised mass deportations. That's what we're doing across the country."
How Operation Rotten Apple Dismantled New York's Sanctuary City Policies
The record numbers are not happening in spite of activist interference – they are happening because ICE stopped giving activists a target.
Homan explained the shift. "We didn't give the Left time to gather up and interrupt us and interfere with us and attack us," he said. "In and out. We do strategic hits, and we got record numbers for it."
"For those people that said targeted enforcement operations won't work, we're breaking records every month," Homan said.
New York is the clearest example of what that looks like on the ground. Operation Rotten Apple ran for 34 days across the state while Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani held press conferences demanding ICE stand down.
When it was over, federal agents had taken 2,197 illegal aliens into custody – convicted killers, child predators, rapists, and traffickers who moved freely through New York because its elected leaders chose not to stop them.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced those results Tuesday in New York City. "Operation Rotten Apple did what sanctuary politicians in New York City and the state of New York refuse to do: made the Empire State safer," he said. "And we did it with no help from Mayor Mamdani and Governor Hochul."
Among those pulled off the street was Bogdan Detrovich Gren, a Ukrainian national with convictions for kidnapping, abduction resulting in death, and murder. Federal agents also arrested two convicted rapists – Carlos Mendez-Acosta, a Venezuelan national, and Palvinder Singh, an Indian national flagged by an INTERPOL red notice for a rape conviction in Germany.
These are the people Hochul's sanctuary laws kept in New York.
Hochul's decision to terminate the state's 287(g) agreements – the federal-local partnerships that allowed county jails to hold criminal aliens for ICE pickup – produced the opposite of what she intended.
Homan warned her about the move. "I told her if she kicks us out of the jails and ends that 287(g) program, we're going to have to send more agents to the street," he said. "I said it, I meant it, we did it."
Forcing ICE out of controlled jail settings puts more agents in communities – and on the street, agents encounter more people. Hochul's obstruction became a force multiplier.
Homan was clear that New York is not a finished product.
"This is just phase one. We're not stopping," he said. "We'll be out there tomorrow. We'll be out there across the state to enforce immigration law. Her and the mayor, Mamdani, are not going to stop us."
ICE has three consecutive all-time records. Sanctuary politicians are holding press conferences while federal agents bag murderers two blocks away.
The strategy is working. Nobody on the Left has figured out how to slow it down – and Homan is not giving them time to try.
Sources:
- Nicole Weatherholtz, "Homan to Newsmax: ICE 'Strategic Hits' Fuel Record Arrests," Newsmax, September 1, 2026.
- "Secretary Mullin Highlights Success of Operation Rotten Apple: ICE Arrests Over 2,100 Illegal Aliens in New York," Department of Homeland Security, September 1, 2026.
- "DHS Secretary Bashes New York Leadership After Announcing Thousands of Arrests in Sweeping Operation," Fox News, September 1, 2026.
- Ward Clark, "Rotten Apple Raids: ICE Nails Murderers, Child Predators in Epic New York Sweep," RedState, September 1, 2026.
- "ICE Arrests Nearly 2,200 Illegal Migrants in New York Sweep," Hannity.com, September 1, 2026.
- Anna Giaritelli, "Mass Deportations Are Coming: Homan Previews ICE Surge to Sanctuary Cities," Washington Examiner, May 5, 2026.