ICE surges enforcement, makes 10,000 arrests in five days amid Supreme Court birthright citizenship decision
FIRST ON FOX: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is ramping up arrests as a Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship delivered a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to curb immigration policy.
Fox News Digital obtained figures from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) source that showed more than 10,000 arrests have been made in the last five days alone.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship, upholding the long-standing policy that most children who are born in the U.S. will automatically become citizens, even if the child’s parents are living in the country illegally.
TRUMP SUFFERS MAJOR SUPREME COURT DEFEAT AS JUSTICES UPHOLD BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP
A source familiar with ICE operations said the agency is currently ramping up operations using funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill as the passage of the legislation nears its one-year anniversary.
The court cited the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution as the basis for the decision, saying "Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause."
Trump punched back at the ruling, urging Congress to amend the Constitution to pave a path to abolishing birthright citizenship.
"No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship," Trump posted on Truth Social. "They will have my Complete and Total Support!"
As ICE seeks to increase arrests, agitators have been mobilizing across the country, demanding better living conditions for those detained in federal facilities and calling for reforms to ICE operational protocols.
In late May, agitators flooded the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, in a violent clash between rioters and ICE agents alongside local law enforcement officers.
A Fox News Digital investigation, based on reporting from the ground in Newark, in secret Signal group chats, a number of tax filings, strategy documents, and social media posts, found that the protests outside Delaney Hall were not a spontaneous grassroots uprising. Instead, they were the product of years of coordinated planning by a network of well-funded, highly organized groups that used a local controversy as a platform to challenge federal immigration policies and, more broadly, the United States.
The network behind the Delaney Hall protests includes about 100 groups, some of them big names like the ACLU, Indivisible and Democratic Socialists of America. Together, these organizations report collective annual revenues of about $825 million, approximately equal to the annual budget of Newark.
Despite the organized resistance, ICE operations continued, and DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement that a majority of arrests involve illegal migrants who have previously been charged or convicted of a crime.
"Since Day One, DHS law enforcement has been delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists," Bis explained.
"Nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S. More than 3 million illegal aliens are out of the country and counting. Our message is clear: if you come to our country illegally, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you," she added.