(MINNEAPOLIS) – ICE arrest activity eased after the Minneapolis killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, while ICE detention totals stayed at record or near-record levels across much of 2026, according to arrest and detention data covering the weeks after Tom Homan’s drawdown announcement.

An analysis of ICE arrest records found the agency averaged 7,369 weekly arrests nationwide in the five weeks after the announcement, down from 8,347 per week in the previous five weeks. That amounts to a drop of nearly 12%.

The same comparison showed a shift in who was being arrested. The share of people ICE arrested who had no criminal charges or convictions fell from 46% to 41%.

Those figures point to a slower arrest pace after the Minneapolis crackdown tied to the killings of Good and Pretti. They do not show a broad collapse in detention.

Detention data moved on a different track. Vera’s detention dashboard showed the daily detention population hit a record high of more than 73,400 in mid-January 2026, and by mid-March 2026 the detained population remained at unprecedented levels.

A separate data release covering April 4, 2026 put the detention population at 60,311. That was down 10,455 over roughly ten weeks from an earlier peak, but it still described a very large detention system.

The contrast between arrests and detention captures the limits of reading one data point as the whole story. Arrests fell in the post-killing period, but detention remained high enough in 2026 to rank as record-setting or near-record depending on the period being measured.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council said the numbers reflected a pullback in some enforcement tactics without matching the administration’s public posture. “The Trump administration says: ‘We’re not slowing down,’ ‘Nothing has changed,’” he said.

Reichlin-Melnick added, “But it’s very clear that they have pulled back from some of the tactics of Operation Metro Surge,” referring to the Minneapolis crackdown.

That split matters in practice because arrests and detention do not always move together on the same timetable. Weekly arrest totals can fall quickly after an operational change, while detention counts can stay elevated as people already in custody remain in the system.

The available numbers show exactly that pattern. The post-announcement arrest average dropped from 8,347 to 7,369, yet the detention system still held 60,311 people as of April 4, 2026, after reaching more than 73,400 in mid-January 2026.

Homan’s drawdown announcement marked the dividing line used in the arrest comparison. In the five weeks before it, ICE’s nationwide arrest pace ran higher. In the five weeks after it, the average slowed and the share of arrests involving people with no criminal charges or convictions also declined.

That second figure adds another layer to the shift. A drop from 46% to 41% means ICE made a smaller share of arrests involving people without criminal charges or convictions during the later five-week period.

The detention side of the ledger is harder to compress into a single headline because the reporting windows differ. One snapshot captures the high-water mark of more than 73,400 in mid-January 2026. Another shows the population at 60,311 on April 4, 2026, after a decline of 10,455 over roughly ten weeks.

Both sets of figures can be true at the same time. One shows a peak. The other shows where the system stood later, after some reduction, while still remaining historically large.

That is why the detention trend resists a simple description. A decline from an earlier peak is visible in the later release, but Vera’s dashboard also places detention at unprecedented levels in mid-March 2026, reinforcing that the system stayed far above ordinary levels even after the arrest tempo eased.

The Minneapolis killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti became the reference point for measuring that change in pace. In the weeks that followed, the numbers suggest enforcement activity did not stop, but it did become less intense than in the five weeks immediately before Homan’s announcement.

Nothing in the available figures supports a broad claim that detention emptied out after the killings. The detention count remained in the tens of thousands, and the earlier part of the year included a record high of more than 73,400.

At the same time, the arrest numbers do support a narrower conclusion. ICE made fewer arrests per week after the announcement than before it, and the later arrest period included a smaller share of people with no criminal charges or convictions.

Those two trends, taken together, describe a system that changed shape rather than one that shut down. Arrests eased after the Minneapolis killings of Good and Pretti. ICE detention stayed historically high in 2026.

Reichlin-Melnick’s description of Operation Metro Surge fits that pattern closely: a retreat from some tactics, not a wholesale halt. The arrest data show the pullback. The detention data show how much of the system remained in place.

Different measurement windows will keep shaping how that debate is framed. A focus on the five-week arrest averages highlights the drop from 8,347 to 7,369. A focus on the detention snapshots highlights either the record high of more than 73,400 in mid-January 2026 or the still-elevated 60,311 on April 4, 2026.

Read together, the figures show a post-killing slowdown in arrests after Minneapolis, not a broad collapse in detention. In raw terms, the system shrank from an earlier peak, but by spring it was still holding more than 60,000 people.

The numbers leave a narrow but clear picture: after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, ICE enforcement lost some speed, Operation Metro Surge tactics receded, and the detention apparatus remained large enough to define 2026 as an era of exceptionally high confinement.