ORPHANED BY ICE

Harrowing Reality of Trump’s ICE Crackdown Revealed

Moms and dads of American children are being arrested at triple the Biden-era rate.

ICE arrested 16,701 parents of U.S. citizen children in six months, new figures reveal. The data covers October 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026 and was published on July 20 in ICE’s FY2026 detention statistics file, PunchUp reported. It also shows 17,890 parents of American children booked into detention over the same period, with 10,885 deported, the Daily Beast’s sister investigation Substack found. Extended across a full year, that arrest rate would hit roughly 33,400—well beyond the 24,545 recorded in 2018 at the height of family separation, and close to three-and-a-half times the 9,739 arrests logged in Joe Biden’s last full year in office, according to the analysis. Donald Trump, 80, has repeatedly said the crackdown is aimed at “the worst of the worst.” Border czar Tom Homan, 64, told Fox News on July 18 that “60 percent of everyone arrested right now is a criminal, 40 percent are non-criminal.” The same tables record six U.S. citizens arrested and five booked into detention during the six-month window, compared with one in 2022.

Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.

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