ICE SAYS IT BROKE EVERY RECORD. HERE IS WHAT THE NUMBERS SHOW, WHAT THEY LEAVE OUT, AND WHAT THEY MEAN FOR THE VALLEY.
483,200 deportations. More than 491,000 arrests. Both are the highest one-year totals in the 23-year history of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a Department of Homeland Security press release issued Thursday.
That is roughly 1,324 deportations a day, every day, for a year.
The release is short. It is a press release, not a data report. It carries no tables, no breakdown by field office, no criminal-history numbers and no definition of what counts as a deportation. This report lays out what DHS put on the record, what independent data adds, and where the Rio Grande Valley sits inside those totals.
WHAT DHS PUT ON THE RECORD
The release is titled "ICE Breaks Records in Fiscal Year 2026, With Most Arrests and Deportations in Agency's History." Fiscal year 2026 ran from October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026.
These figures come from DHS and are attributed to DHS:
Deportations in FY2026: 483,200
Previous record, FY2025: 442,640
FY2024, the last full fiscal year under President Biden: 271,484
FY2022 through FY2024 combined: about 486,000
FY2021: about 59,000
Arrests in FY2026: more than 491,000
Administrative arrests within that total: nearly 475,000
FY2022 through FY2024 combined: fewer than 427,000
FY2021: about 74,000
Monthly arrests, summer 2026:
June: 43,900
July: 50,208
August: 50,925, the highest single month on record
September: more than 48,000, with about 44,000 removals
Since January 2025, DHS says more than 3 million people have left the country, with more than 1.25 million arrests and nearly 1.2 million deportations through October.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in the release, "I couldn't be prouder of the brave men and women of ICE."
THE MATH
The following calculations are The 956 Report's, based on the DHS figures above.
FY2026 deportations rose 40,560 over FY2025. That is a 9.2 percent increase.
They rose 78 percent over FY2024.
They ran 18 percent above the 409,849 removals ICE recorded in FY2012 under President Obama, the benchmark CBS News reports DHS used.
Four months, June through September, account for about 193,000 arrests. That is roughly 39 percent of the year's total packed into the final third of the year. The pace was accelerating when the fiscal year closed.
Subtract administrative arrests from total arrests and about 16,000 remain. That is roughly 3 percent of the total. Administrative arrests are for civil immigration violations, not criminal charges. An administrative arrest does not mean the person has no criminal record. It means the arrest itself was civil.
ICE's own budget request sets a target of 1 million removals and returns a year for both FY2026 and FY2027, according to reporting by The Washington Times. At 483,200, the agency reached about 48 percent of that target.
WHAT THE RELEASE DOES NOT SAY
1. How many of the people arrested or deported had criminal convictions.
The release offers no number. Independent data fills part of the gap.
CBS News reports that in July 2026, more than half of ICE arrests involved people with no criminal conviction and no pending charge. CBS says that was a first for this administration. Its analysis found about 6 percent of people booked into ICE detention had a violent crime conviction.
TRAC, the data center at Syracuse University, reports that 46,436 of the 65,765 people in ICE detention on July 11, 2026 had no criminal conviction. That is 70.6 percent. TRAC notes that figure includes people with pending charges.
The Migration Policy Institute found about 20 percent of roughly 980,000 deportations by ICE and Customs and Border Protection between January 2025 and July 2026 involved a criminal conviction, according to CBS.
DHS disputes this picture. The department has said about 70 percent of people in ICE detention have convictions or pending charges, and it has criticized the methodology of outside groups that publish ICE records obtained through open-records requests.
2. What counts as a deportation.
A formal removal carries a legal bar on returning. A voluntary return or voluntary departure does not. The release uses one word, deportations, for the whole total.
TRAC found that formal removals made up 63 percent of ICE deportations in July and August 2026. The rest were voluntary departures and returns.
The FY2025 figure deserves the same question. The Oversight Project, a conservative group that supports mass deportation and is suing DHS for its data, says the department told Congress in its FY2027 budget justification that it "removed and returned" 442,637 people in FY2025. That matches the FY2025 record cited Thursday. An ICE data release reported in July listed 319,980 removals for FY2025 and 356,389 removals for FY2026 through July 11.
Analysis: Those two sets of numbers cannot be reconciled from public information. The gap is consistent with the larger totals including returns and voluntary departures alongside formal removals. DHS has not published the breakdown that would settle it.
3. Where the arrests happened.
No state totals. No field office totals. Nothing for Harlingen.
4. The underlying report.
ICE published an annual enforcement report every year from FY2020 through FY2024. No FY2025 report has been published, according to the Oversight Project. No FY2026 report accompanied Thursday's release.
WHERE THE VALLEY FITS
The release does not mention the Rio Grande Valley. The Valley is in the numbers anyway. Here is what public data shows.
Arrests
ICE's Harlingen area of responsibility covers most of the Valley. About 20,000 people have been arrested there since January 2025, according to Deportation Data Project records cited by the Texas Observer.
A Washington Post analysis published October 7 found at-large arrests in South Texas rose from about 400 in 2024 to more than 9,000 in 2026. At-large means arrests in homes, at worksites, at immigration check-ins and in public, not in jails. That is more than a twentyfold increase.
The Post found that nearly 80 percent of the people arrested at large by the Harlingen field office since January 2025 had no criminal record.
On June 18, 2026, ICE Harlingen arrested 238 people in one day. ICE called it the highest single-day total of targeted arrests for the Harlingen field office. The agency publicly detailed the criminal histories of a handful of those arrested. It gave no details on the remaining 230, according to KRGV.
Detention
Two dedicated ICE detention centers sit in the Valley.
Port Isabel Service Processing Center, near Los Fresnos in Cameron County, has an operational capacity of 1,175, according to a federal contracting notice. Its average daily population in February 2026 was about 1,448, according to Vera Institute of Justice data. That is about 123 percent of stated capacity. TRAC previously documented the facility running 103 people over its contractual capacity at its FY2025 peak.
El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Willacy County, is run by Management and Training Corporation. Its capacity is 1,000. Its average daily population was about 926 in February 2026, according to Vera data.
In late October, advocates said 20 to 25 detainees at El Valle were on hunger strike over food, water and treatment by guards, Border Report reported. ICE told Border Report the allegations of poor conditions are false and said detainees receive proper meals, quality water and medical treatment.
Flights
Valley International Airport in Harlingen is one of ICE Air's main staging hubs. ICE Flight Monitor, a project housed at Human Rights First, tracked a record 288 removal flights nationwide in May 2026. It reported five U.S. military removal flights from Harlingen to San Pedro Sula, Honduras in early June alone.
Local jails
Texas Senate Bill 8 requires sheriffs in counties of 100,000 or more to sign cooperation agreements with ICE. The Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office signed a warrant service officer agreement dated October 17, 2025. The Cameron County Sheriff's Office signed one dated January 26, 2026, according to a Prison Policy Initiative compilation of ICE records. Under that model, jail staff serve ICE warrants on people already in county custody.
The border
The Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector recorded more migrant encounters than any other southwest border sector in nearly every month of FY2026, according to Border Report's review of CBP data. The numbers are small by historic standards. June 2026 brought 2,227 encounters in the sector. December 2024 brought 10,129.
The Migration Policy Institute found 69 percent of all ICE and CBP deportations between January 20, 2025 and July 31, 2026 were of people first intercepted at the border. The share tied to interior arrests climbed from 28 percent in 2025 to 39 percent by July 2026.
Analysis: The Valley sits on both sides of that ledger. It is the busiest stretch of the border, and it is a community where interior arrests have multiplied.
THE ECONOMIC LEDGER
Construction payrolls in the Brownsville-Harlingen metro area are down about 5 percent from a year earlier, according to the Washington Post's analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Cameron County's labor force has shrunk nearly 2 percent.
Paul Rodriguez, president and CEO of Valley Land Title Company, told Border Report in January that home construction loans had dropped 30 to 40 percent because of worker arrests at job sites. That is his estimate, not an independently verified figure.
Ronnie Cavazos, chairman of the South Texas Builders Association, told Marketplace in October that one phase of a project will take 18 months instead of 12. He said he spent $15,000 on fencing around job sites.
America's Voice, an immigration advocacy organization, reported that Valley construction employment fell 5 percent in the third quarter of 2025, which it called the largest quarterly drop on record for the region. The group's report acknowledges that weather, fuel prices and normal market swings also move prices and jobs.
The administration's position is that tighter enforcement will raise wages and push employers toward domestic hiring. Builders interviewed by the Post said they have not been able to replace the workers who left.
THE POLITICAL LEDGER
The release landed nine days after the midterms.
In Hidalgo County, Democrat James Talarico won 72.45 percent of the U.S. Senate vote to Republican Ken Paxton's 26 percent. In Cameron County, Talarico won 68.35 percent to Paxton's 29.90 percent. Those are MyRGV's reported county results. In Congressional District 15, Democrat Bobby Pulido defeated Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz 62.3 percent to 37.7 percent, according to NBC News results.
President Trump carried all four Valley counties in 2024.
CBS News exit polling found 58 percent of midterm voters nationally said immigration enforcement had gone too far. 22 percent said it was about right. 20 percent said it had not gone far enough.
Votes have many causes. Cost of living ranked alongside immigration enforcement in post-election coverage of South Texas. What is documented is that Valley business leaders, many of them Republicans, warned of this outcome in public for months. "Let's be real, we voted for it," Cavazos said at a July rally in Pharr, according to the Texas Tribune.
Days before the release, Trump told 60 Minutes of his own enforcement policy, "I think it was too tough," CBS reported. He said he is open to working with congressional Democrats on immigration legislation. Democrats, who won both chambers, have promised oversight of ICE.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE RGV
The record is national. The weight is local.
The Valley hosts two of the detention centers, one of the main flight hubs, the busiest Border Patrol sector and a field office that set its own single-day arrest record in June. Two county sheriffs now serve ICE warrants inside their jails under state mandate.
The pace was still rising when the fiscal year ended. A July 2025 law set aside about $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security, including $75 billion for ICE. The agency's stated target is double what it achieved.
At the same time, the president has called the policy too tough, and the incoming Congress has promised hearings.
The questions DHS has not answered are the ones that matter most here. How many of the 483,200 were formal removals? How many had criminal convictions? How many were arrested in the Harlingen area of responsibility? How many passed through Port Isabel, Raymondville and the Harlingen airport?
The agency has the data. It used to publish it every month.
SOURCES
DHS press release, November 12, 2026
ICE copy of the release
CBS News via News 9, November 12, 2026
Newsweek, November 12, 2026
TRAC Immigration Detention Quick Facts
TRAC Report 762, detention capacity
Migration Policy Institute press release, October 22, 2026
The Daily Wire, Oversight Project lawsuit and FY2025 figure
The Federalist, Oversight Project lawsuit, July 8, 2026
RedState, ICE data release, July 21, 2026
America's Voice, ICE budget target
Washington Post analysis, October 7, 2026, as published by The Detroit News
Texas Border Business, summary of the Post analysis
Texas Observer, November 2026
ICE Harlingen release, July 14, 2026
KRGV, July 13, 2026
Port Isabel Detention Center federal contracting notice
Port Isabel SPC facility data (Vera Institute data, February 2026)
El Valle Detention Facility data (Vera Institute data, February 2026)
Border Report, El Valle hunger strike, October 23, 2026
Human Rights First, ICE Flight Monitor, May 2026 data
Prison Policy Initiative, 287(g) agreements table
Border Report, RGV Sector encounters, June 2026
Border Report, RGV Sector encounters, December 2025
Border Report via Construction Owners, Rodriguez loan estimate, January 26, 2026
Marketplace, October 1, 2026
RGV Business Journal, America's Voice report, August 11, 2026
Texas Tribune via KSAT, builders rally, July 29, 2026
MyRGV, Valley midterm results, November 10, 2026
NBC News, Texas Congressional District 15 results
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