Since our last coverage of the Senate's $72 billion ICE funding advance, enforcement operations across the country have continued generating both results and controversy — and a major new economic study has put hard numbers on the costs that supporters of mass enforcement rarely discuss.

What ICE Actually Did

The arrests are documented and serious.

In New Jersey, DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis confirmed ICE removed illegal aliens with convictions including voluntary manslaughter, sexual assault, robbery, and weapons offenses. Named individuals include Jose Manuel Rivera-Mes of Guatemala, convicted of voluntary manslaughter; Marcos Delacruz of El Salvador, convicted of sex assault and fraud; and Success Bounte of Ghana, convicted of robbery, burglary, and identity theft.

In South Carolina, ICE ran Operation Safe Drive on May 12-14, resulting in 114 arrests along I-26 and I-85, 145 total traffic stops, and the seizure of 10 kilograms of cocaine worth $200,000, according to the Columbia Post and Courier. ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams confirmed the operation involved cooperation from the state's SLED agency and 44 other state law enforcement partners.

In Chicago, ICE arrested Luis Manuel Saucedo-Cardenas, 40, a former La Raza gang member from Mexico with priors for assault, carjacking, and wire fraud — after the Chicago Police Department refused to honor a federal criminal arrest warrant and released him onto the street despite confirming awareness of the warrant on May 1. ICE Chicago Acting Field Office Director Tammy Marich said: "The Chicago Police Department knowingly jeopardized the public's safety by releasing a dangerous suspect with a federal criminal arrest warrant."

In New York, four Venezuelan nationals — Keiber Jaen Martinez, Samuel Gonzalez Castro, Eferson Gabriel Morillo-Gomez, and Keineyer Ibarra-Mujica — pleaded guilty last week to a 2024 double murder in the Bronx that killed Claretha Daniels, 44, and Justin Lawless, 36. Three of the four were released into the U.S. interior under Biden-era catch-and-release policy. All four were members of Tren de Aragua, a designated terrorist organization. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the case and called TDA "a terrorist organization with no place and no future in the United States."

What the Economic Data Says

Brookings Institution researchers Marcela Escobari, Ian Seyal, and Paul Beach published a study on May 29 analyzing ICE enforcement surges across 86 cities. Their finding: the enforcement surge is associated with 668,000 jobs lost — with employment falling 0.73% below baseline in surge cities, and 1.48% in the 51 cities tracked at least six months out.

They estimate between 51,000 and 297,000 of those job losses would have been held by American-born workers.

Each excess arrest — roughly 52,000 total across surge cities — is associated with 13 jobs lost overall. Losses hit construction and food services hardest, but Brookings found contractions even in industries with very few immigrant workers, like arts and entertainment.

This contradicts the Trump administration's stated rationale that removing unauthorized workers creates jobs for Americans. According to Brookings, employment fell instead in surge cities.

Brookings is a left-leaning institution and methodology debates here are legitimate. But the study uses actual employment data from actual cities over actual time periods. Dismissing it without engaging the numbers requires a substantive response.

The Sanctuary City Question Is Real — Both Ways

The Chicago case illustrates a genuine policy problem. A man with a federal criminal arrest warrant was in police custody. ICE made multiple requests. Chicago released him anyway. That is a city government actively shielding a repeat violent offender from federal law enforcement.

Prison Policy Initiative research published in December 2025 shows local cooperation or non-cooperation with ICE has measurable effects on arrest volumes — meaning sanctuary policies do materially slow federal enforcement. Whether that's good or bad depends on one's values, but the effect is real.

What the Newark Protest Coverage Is Missing

Victor Davis Hanson's June 3 piece in the Daily Signal calls out the Delaney Hall protests in Newark as pre-orchestrated, noting elaborate equipment, supplied food, and coordinated logistics. He also cites that approximately 45% of ICE officers are Hispanic — a demographic reality that cuts against protest narratives framing enforcement as racially motivated.

The one detainee death at Delaney Hall, which protesters cited as evidence of inhumane conditions, reportedly occurred under circumstances that sent the individual to a hospital. Hanson puts the detainee death rate in federal immigration facilities at approximately 0.009% — a figure that does not support claims of systemic brutality, though it also does not mean zero oversight is needed.

Mainstream left-leaning media has amplified the protest story. Right-leaning media has amplified the criminal arrest records. Each side has selected which facts to emphasize.

Summary

ICE is arresting people with genuinely dangerous criminal records. Sanctuary cities are actively interfering with those arrests. And a credible economic study says the broader enforcement surge is destroying American jobs, including jobs held by American citizens. These are separate phenomena pointing in different directions, and comprehensive coverage requires addressing all three.