Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested more than 10,000 gang members so far during President Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a June 24 statement.
“These 10,000 criminals committed heinous crimes, including murder, assault with a deadly weapon, drug trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, robbery, and extortion,” the DHS stated.
The 10,000th individual arrested is a criminal illegal immigrant from Mexico and a member of the MS-13 gang. He was previously arrested for possession of a weapon and abduction and convicted of cocaine possession.
Some of the “worst gang members” taken into custody under the administration include an El Salvador MS-13 member wanted in his home nation for murdering a pastor, another MS-13 gang member who has confessed to committing five murders in El Salvador, and a Honduran MS-13 member arrested in Nebraska in December 2025 who is wanted in his home country for a quadruple homicide.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said many of the 10,000 arrested gang members were released into the United States under the Biden administration.
“These vicious criminals murdered, assaulted, robbed, and terrorized innocent Americans for sport,“ Mullin said. ”Thanks to the Secure America Act, ICE is turbocharged to arrest even more gang members and criminals from American neighborhoods.”
The Secure America Act, signed into law by Trump on June 10, funds ICE and Border Patrol through Sept. 30, 2029, beyond the end of the president’s second term.
The bill provides $38 billion to support immigration enforcement, including funds to hire, train, equip, and compensate ICE officers. The measure allocated $5 billion for border security tech and screening systems.
In a June 8 letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, highlighted how important the funding is for U.S. security.
“The legislation will provide DHS and its law enforcement components with substantial multi-year funding to strengthen our nation’s defenses against illegal immigration, transnational criminal organizations, terrorists, and other threats to our country,” Yoes said.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the arrest of a large number of criminals in a June 17 announcement.
Under Operation Spring Cleaning, led by the FBI from March 1 to May 31, authorities arrested more than 1,100 individuals and filed more than 600 charges.
The operation also led to the seizure of almost 1,000 illegal firearms and thousands of pounds of narcotics.
Tackling Illegal Criminals
On June 2, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and ranking Democrat member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to “express our opposition” to the Deport Alien Gang Members Act.
The act, introduced in March 2025, makes non-U.S. citizens associated with criminal gangs inadmissible into the United States. If such individuals are present in the country, they are deemed deportable.
“The bill in no way accounts for those forced to engage in covered activities under duress, creating conflicts with existing law, even as criminal enterprises frequently rely on such tactics to exploit vulnerable persons,“ the group stated. ”For this reason, we are especially concerned about the lack of safeguards in the bill for minors and victims of human trafficking.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also raised concerns that people who unknowingly aid activities of a criminal gang may get penalized under the bill.
On June 3, the House Judiciary Committee agreed to report the bill to the full House.
The Trump administration is also investigating immigration attorneys who file fraudulent asylum claims to bring in foreign nationals.
On June 23, the DHS announced that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is seeking to impose a fine of more than $250,000 against an immigration attorney who allegedly filed false asylum claims for clients.
The action is being taken against attorney Vinod Doddamani, alleged to have prepared and filed 64 fraudulent documents in 32 immigration cases.
“Fraudulent asylum claims threaten the safety of Americans by overwhelming our burdened immigration system and delaying the removal of dangerous criminal aliens,” said DHS general counsel James Percival.
“By holding him accountable, we are sending a message to other immigration attorneys who engage in fraud across the country: your days of abusing and defrauding our immigration system are over.
“For too long, immigration attorneys have not been held to the same ethical standard as other attorneys.”
