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The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed this Friday a nationwide immigration operation that will take place over the weekend of July 4, Independence Day in the United States, as reported by Telemundo in its midday edition.
The agency specified that the actions will focus on individuals with criminal records, final deportation orders, or those who pose a threat to public safety.
In light of the announcement, a lawyer consulted by Telemundo advised immigrants to celebrate the festivities with caution, given the expected presence of federal agents during those days.
The operation comes at a time of unprecedented escalation in the pace of arrests.
Just days before, ICE surpassed 10,000 arrests in just five days, nearly doubling the average recorded at the beginning of 2026, when the agency was making around 1,000 arrests daily.
The goal of approximately 2,000 arrests per day was set directly by the White House, although an anonymous federal official warned the newspaper The New York Times that "it is not clear how long that level of activity will be maintained."
Unlike the large-scale high-impact operations conducted in previous months in cities like Chicago or Los Angeles, the recent escalation has been carried out with a more discreet profile: immigration checks, traffic inspections, and actions in public spaces.
The announcement of the festive operation contrasts with previous statements from the so-called "border czar," Tom Homan, who in June indicated that during the 2026 World Cup — which takes place from June 11 to July 19 — "the mission of ICE is not to arrest people who are in the country illegally," unless they pose a threat to national security.
The operation on July 4 marks a shift from that public stance.
This context is framed within the policy of mass deportations promoted by the Trump administration since January 2025.
The Secure America Act, signed on June 10, 2026, allocated 70 billion dollars to fund ICE and Border Patrol through 2029, with an official goal of expelling one million people in the fiscal year 2025-2026.
The Cuban community is among the most affected by this escalation. The arrests of Cubans increased by 463% between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2026, and over 42,000 Cubans in U.S. territory are considered deportable by the Department of Homeland Security.
The ICE office in Miami led the operations with an average of 120 arrests per day and over 41,000 cumulative detentions from January 2025 to April 2026.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in California blocked on Friday, at the national level, the ICE policy that allowed arrests to be made inside immigration courts, marking a new judicial setback for the agency's tactics.
After the signing of the Secure America Act, Homan stated that "2026 will be a good year for removal operations," a statement that the operation over the holiday weekend seems to confirm.
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