- DHS denied any change in ICE policy, saying no one is off the table for arrest and deportation.
- The department described enforcement in sanctuary cities as a nationwide public safety surge focused on criminal immigrants.
- Reported ICE arrests rose from 43,000 in June to more than 50,000 in August.
The Department of Homeland Security rejected reports of a change in ICE arrest policy on September 27, 2026, saying anyone in the country unlawfully remained subject to arrest and deportation. The department said “No one is off the table.”
“This is false. No one is off the table. We will continue to arrest any and all illegal aliens that come into our path,” DHS wrote in a public post. The statement denied any change and added that “Anyone in our country illegally will be arrested and deported.”
The denial answered a report that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had been told to stop arresting immigrants without criminal records. DHS did not announce a pause. Instead, it said enforcement would continue.
The account of a possible change had circulated amid reports of new internal guidance. The dispute left two different descriptions of ICE’s instructions in public view.
The reported pause centered on arrests of people without criminal cases
Jennie Taer, an immigration reporter, reported that ICE officers across the country had been told to stop arresting “non-criminals.” The term referred to undocumented migrants without criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.
That alleged instruction appeared to conflict with the department’s public position. DHS shared Taer’s report while calling it false. The agency’s post did not describe an exemption for people without criminal cases.
Accounts tied the confusion to internal discussions about prioritizing the “worst first.” Administration sources described the issue as a “miscommunication,” rather than a formal change in policy. The distinction in those accounts was about priority, not a public retreat from arrests.
One reported point of confusion involved “collaterals,” or people encountered during operations aimed at someone else. An account of the new guidance said field offices were told arrests of people in the country unlawfully would continue, including those collateral arrests.
Trump and Melugin described a reaffirmed policy, not a retreat
President Donald Trump told Bill Melugin that anyone in the United States illegally remained “on the table” for arrest and deportation. Melugin, a senior Fox News correspondent, said he had been told there was “no change in immigration enforcement policy.”
“No one is off the table.”
Melugin also said new guidance went to ICE field offices on Saturday night to reaffirm the position. That account offered a possible explanation for the conflicting reports, while maintaining that the policy itself had not changed.
The reports described instructions reaching offices around the country, but the public explanation from DHS was categorical. The department said officers would continue making arrests, and Trump’s statement, as relayed by Melugin, likewise rejected an exemption for people in the country unlawfully.
DHS cast the operations as a public-safety surge
The department described ICE’s activity as a “nationwide public safety surge” in sanctuary cities. It said officers would target criminal immigrants, including “murderers, rapists, child predators, and gang members.”
DHS also characterized some of those targets as people released from jails by sanctuary politicians. That was the department’s stated rationale for the operations, not a separate finding about each person ICE might arrest.
The broad policy language and the reported focus on criminal cases sat alongside each other in the public debate. DHS said no one was excluded from arrest, while the surge announcement emphasized people it described as criminal offenders.
Reported arrest totals climbed through the summer
Separate accounts put ICE arrests at 43,000 in June, more than 49,000 in July and nearly 51,000 in August. Another report put the August total at more than 50,000 arrests.
Those figures show the scale of arrests cited during the dispute, but they do not resolve what field officers were told about people without criminal records. The disagreement focused on guidance and enforcement priorities, not a published arrest tally.
DHS also cited a rise in assaults on ICE personnel. The department’s reporting counted 647 assaults from Jan. 20, 2025, through Sept. 20, 2026, compared with 37 during a comparable Biden-era period.
The department’s stated enforcement position remained in place as of its September 27 post: anyone in the country illegally could be arrested and deported.
