ICE arrests top 10,000 in five days as Trump administration doubles down after birthright citizenship defeat

The Trump administration responded to its biggest Supreme Court loss of the term not by retreating but by accelerating. In the five days after the justices upheld birthright citizenship in a 6-3 ruling, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 10,000 illegal immigrants across the country, Fox News Digital reported, citing a Department of Homeland Security source.

The arrest surge sent a blunt message: the Court may have blocked one avenue for curbing illegal immigration, but the enforcement machinery funded by the "One Big Beautiful Bill" is running full speed on every other front.

What the Court ruled, and what it didn't

The Supreme Court struck down President Trump's executive order restricting birthright citizenship, holding that children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion. Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in the result, though the constitutional question itself split 5-4.

Roberts framed the ruling in sweeping terms. AP News reported his majority opinion declaring:

"Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights, to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in this land. We keep that promise today."

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented sharply, writing that "the Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President's Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens."

The ruling would have affected more than 250,000 babies born in the U.S. each year, AP reported, including children of legal visa holders and green card applicants. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin called the decision "dead wrong" and highlighted national security risks from birth tourism, particularly from China.

The administration's two-track response

President Trump took to Truth Social within hours of the ruling, urging lawmakers to act immediately:

"No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support!"

Whether Congress can deliver on that front is an open question. Justice Kavanaugh suggested in his opinion that lawmakers could amend the federal citizenship statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a), to restrict birthright citizenship. But legal experts told the Washington Examiner that the majority opinion appears to close that legislative door. A constitutional amendment, meanwhile, would require two-thirds majorities in both chambers, a threshold Republicans do not hold.

House Speaker Mike Johnson was unequivocal in his criticism. Just The News reported his statement calling the ruling "antithetical to the rule of law," adding that "our country should be under no obligation to permit illegal immigration to America for the sole purpose of engineering citizenship."

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida pushed for immediate legislative action, saying the Court "has made its decision" and that "Congress needs to respond. We need to be voting on these EVERY WEEK until we provide the American people with an answer."

But the administration's second track, enforcement on the ground, did not require a single vote in Congress. And that is where the numbers tell the story.

10,000 arrests and counting

DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis laid out the scale in a statement to Fox News Digital. Nearly 70 percent of ICE arrests, she said, involve illegal immigrants charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States. The agency's targets include murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists.

"Since Day One, DHS law enforcement has been delivering on President Trump's promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists."

Bis added that more than 3 million illegal immigrants have left the country since the start of the administration. Her warning was direct:

"Our message is clear: if you come to our country illegally, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you."

The 10,000-plus arrests in five days came as ICE operations ramp up with funding from the "One Big Beautiful Bill," which is nearing its one-year anniversary. A source familiar with ICE operations told Fox News Digital that the agency is prioritizing violent criminals but has reaffirmed that all illegal immigrants are eligible for deportation.

That posture stands in sharp contrast to the prior administration's enforcement priorities, which narrowed the categories of illegal immigrants whom agents could pursue. Under the current approach, the question is not whether someone qualifies for removal, it is when agents get to them.

Obstruction on the ground

The enforcement surge has not gone unchallenged. In late May, agitators flooded the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, sparking a violent clash with ICE agents and local law enforcement. A Fox News Digital investigation found that approximately 100 groups, including the ACLU, Indivisible, and the Democratic Socialists of America, were part of the network behind the protests. Those groups' collective annual revenues total roughly $825 million, a figure the investigation noted is approximately equal to Newark's entire annual budget.

The confrontation at Delaney Hall was not an isolated episode. The FBI arrested a protester who allegedly threatened to kill an ICE officer's family at the New Jersey detention center, as New Jersey Democrats staged a Memorial Day spectacle at the same facility.

The pattern of institutional obstruction extends beyond street protests. Courts and government employees have also tried to shield illegal immigrants from arrest. A federal judge recently upheld a guilty verdict against a Milwaukee judge who helped an illegal immigrant dodge ICE. In Utah, two former court clerks face federal charges for allegedly doing the same thing.

These cases illustrate a broader problem. The enforcement debate is not just about policy disagreements, it involves public officials actively breaking the law to undermine federal immigration operations.

The constitutional clash ahead

The birthright citizenship ruling leaves the administration with a narrower set of tools on one front but a clear field on another. The executive order is gone. A legislative fix faces long odds. A constitutional amendment is, for practical purposes, off the table in the current Congress.

But the ruling said nothing about the government's authority to arrest, detain, and deport illegal immigrants who are already here. It did not restrict ICE funding. It did not limit the scope of removal operations. And it did not touch the "One Big Beautiful Bill" provisions that have given ICE the resources to sustain a pace of 2,000 arrests per day.

Trump had called it "a disgrace" if the Court preserved birthright citizenship in the weeks before the ruling. Now that the decision is final, the administration has pivoted to the tools the Court left intact.

Breitbart reported that the 6-3 decision leaves Trump with limited options on the citizenship question itself, including pursuing legislative changes or increased border enforcement. The administration has clearly chosen the latter, and chosen it aggressively.

Some Republicans are now targeting birth tourism as an alternative approach, a narrower strategy that could attract broader support. DHS Secretary Mullin's focus on Chinese nationals exploiting birth tourism suggests the administration may pursue that angle through regulation or targeted legislation rather than a sweeping constitutional fight.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court's recent term has shown the justices willing to limit government power in some areas while defending it in others, a reminder that the Court is not a reliable ally or enemy for either party on every issue.

Where this leaves the country

The birthright citizenship fight exposed a real tension in conservative governance. Executive orders are fast but fragile. Constitutional amendments are durable but nearly impossible. Legislation sits somewhere in between, and the majority opinion may have blocked that path too.

What the ruling did not block is enforcement. The 10,000 arrests in five days are not a symbolic gesture. They represent the largest sustained arrest pace of the Trump administration, backed by congressional funding and aimed overwhelmingly at criminals. Nearly seven in ten of those arrested face criminal charges or convictions in the United States.

The left celebrated the birthright ruling as a vindication. But the families of the murder victims, assault survivors, and communities living with the consequences of illegal immigration are not asking about the Fourteenth Amendment. They are asking whether the person who harmed them will be found, arrested, and removed.

On that question, the administration's answer has been 10,000 names in five days.

The Court can define who gets a birth certificate. It cannot stop the government from enforcing the laws already on the books, and right now, that enforcement is the only thing standing between American communities and the consequences of decades of failure at the border.