A sudden shift: ICE arrests drop nearly 12% after Minneapolis killings and immigration shake-up

At the peak of the crackdown, carloads of masked immigration officers were a common sight in the streets of Minneapolis, while thousands of people were being arrested every week in Texas, Florida and California.

“Turn and burn,” top Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino called the strategy, with relentless displays of force and teams of agents descending on restaurant kitchens, bus stops and Home Depot parking lots.

In December, arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents peaked at nearly 40,000 nationwide and were nearly as high the next month, according to data provided to UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project and analyzed by The Associated Press.

In late January, the killings in Minneapolis of two American citizens by immigration officers and growing concerns over the government’s heavy-handed tactics led to a shake-up of top immigration officials. In the weeks that followed, ICE arrests across the country dropped on average by nearly 12%.

Polling has found the general public felt the immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota went too far, a factor that may have contributed to the abrupt firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in early March.

Bovino, who swaggered through raid scenes in tactical gear and was the public face of the Trump administration crackdown, was pushed aside following the killings in Minneapolis of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Border czar Tom Homan was then sent to the Twin Cities to chart a new course for immigration enforcement, and he announced the drawdown of immigration agents in the state on Feb. 4.

An AP analysis of ICE arrest records show the department averaged 7,369 weekly arrests nationwide in the five weeks after Homan’s drawdown announcement, , the most recent period for which data is available, down from 8,347 per week in the previous five weeks. Those arrest numbers were still higher on average than during much of the first year of President Donald Trump's second term, and were dramatically higher than during the Biden administration.

The numbers were not, however, uniform across the country.

ICE arrests rose significantly in Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina and Florida during those five weeks, in some cases hitting their highest weekly count since the start of Trump’s second term.. In Kentucky alone, weekly arrests more than doubled, reaching 86 by early March.

Those increases were offset by steep drops in a handful of large states, including Minnesota and Texas.

The Trump administration insists it is targeting the most vicious criminals living illegally in the U.S., and the president has referred to them as “ the worst of the worst.”

In some cases the description is accurate, but the reality is complicated.

Many of the toughest criminals taken into ICE custody were already in prison, but many others who were arrested have no criminal history.

Nationally, some 46% of the people ICE arrested in the five weeks before Feb. 4 had no criminal charges or convictions, dropping to 41% in the five weeks that followed.

Yet that’s still above the 35% weekly average for the time since Trump returned to office. And in a number of states, even after Feb. 4, the share of noncriminals being arrested went up, not down.

Across the country, thousands of federal court filings offer an imperfect window into how the Trump administration’s deportation tactics remain in high gear, even if activity has waned.

Like the 21-year-old Honduran man with no criminal record who has filed a petition for release after being arrested Feb. 22 in a suburban San Diego traffic stop. The father of three U.S. citizen children — ages 5, 3 and 10 months — had been under ICE surveillance, the petition says, before officers in tactical gear pulled him over.

Or the 33-year-old Venezuelan woman, a well-known South Texas doctor who worked in a region designated as medically underserved, who was arrested earlier this month with her five-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, on her way to her husband’s asylum hearing.

She was arrested, officials said, for overstaying her visa.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the research and advocacy group the American Immigration Council, says he sees signs of change in lower arrest and detention numbers but warns it’s too early to know if those shifts are permanent.

“The Trump administration says: ‘We’re not slowing down,’ ‘Nothing has changed,’” in immigration enforcement, he said. “But it’s very clear that they have pulled back from some of the tactics of Operation Metro Surge,” the crackdown that swept Minneapolis.

Kessler reported from Washington and Sullivan from Minneapolis. Associated Press reporters Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed.

FILE - An asylum seeker from Ecuador hugs her father as he is detained by federal agents July 31, 2025 (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File)

FILE - U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino walks with Federal agents outside a convenience store Jan. 21, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, File)

FILE - Garrison Gibson is arrested by federal immigration officers Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FILE - Milenko Faria, whose wife, Dr. Rubeliz Bolivar, is in immigration custody, hugs their daughter, Milena, after his asylum interview at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services facility in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Murder charges have been filed against the roommate of a doctoral student from Bangladesh who disappeared with his girlfriend earlier this month from the University of South Florida, authorities said Saturday.

Hisham Abugharbieh, 26, is facing two counts of murder in the first degree with a weapon (premeditated) in the deaths of Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy, students at USF, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

Limon’s remains were found on the Howard Frankland bridge Friday morning, but Bristy is still missing, Hillsborough County Chief Deputy Joseph Maurer said on Friday.

Abugharbieh, a native-born U.S. citizen, was initially taken into custody on Friday at his family’s home on preliminary charges that include unlawfully moving a dead body, failure to report a death, tampering with evidence, false imprisonment and battery.

Officers encountered Abugharbieh as they responded to a report of domestic violence at his family’s home, just north of the campus, and were able to move his relatives to safety. But then he barricaded himself inside and refused to come out. A SWAT team responded — along with a drone, a robot and crisis negotiators — before Abugharbieh came out with his hands up, apparently wearing nothing but a blue towel.

Limon and Bristy, both 27, were considering getting married, a relative said. They disappeared from campus on April 16. Limon was last seen at his home in an off-campus apartment complex where he lived with Abugharbieh. Bristy, who lived on campus, was last seen an hour later at a campus science building.

An autopsy is being done on the remains to determine the manner and cause of Limon’s death, and those results are expected Saturday morning, Maurer said Friday.

Abugharbieh had been a USF student but was not currently enrolled. University records showed he had attended the school from Spring 2021 through Spring 2023, and had pursued a BS in Management, a university spokesperson said.

Limon was studying geography, environmental science and policy, and Bristy is studying chemical engineering.

The search for Bristy continues. Anyone with information regarding her disappearance is asked to contact the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

Abugharbieh had several previous arrests, the sheriff’s office said. He was charged with battery and burglary of an unoccupied dwelling in September 2023, and with battery that May — both classified in court records as misdemeanors.

Court records show Abugharbieh entered into a diversion program for first-time offenders charged with misdemeanors. He completed the program in 2024 and the charges were discontinued. A phone call to his lawyer in that case was not immediately returned.

Hillsborough County Court records also showed two domestic violence petitions filed by a family member in 2023. A judge granted an injunction in one case and denied the other petition. He also was accused of traffic violations.

Members of the media document detectives and deputies with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office as they investigate inside the Lake Forest subdivision of Tampa, Fla., on Friday, April 24, 2026, where authorities said a man was taken into custody after barricading himself inside a home, in connection to the search for two missing University of South Florida graduate students. (Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Detectives with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office join an investigation inside the Lake Forest subdivision of Tampa, Fla., on Friday, April 24, 2026, where authorities said a man was taken into custody after barricading himself inside a home, in connection to the search for two missing University of South Florida graduate students. (Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Detectives with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office join an investigation inside the Lake Forest subdivision of Tampa, Fla., on Friday, April 24, 2026, where authorities said a man was taken into custody after barricading himself inside a home, in connection to the search for two missing University of South Florida graduate students. (Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times via AP)