An agency flush with cash is arresting people at courthouses, on the way to soccer games, and while walking to church. Federal judges have told them to stop. ICE has not.

"We're witnessing ICE, yet again, operate in a lawless and rogue fashion and not following court orders."

— Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition

The numbers came out on a Wednesday, and immigration lawyers across the country recognized them instantly: the sound of the gears grinding again. Over the preceding five days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had detained more than 10,000 people. On the Saturday alone, the tally was 2,400 arrests.

The New York Times, first to report the figures, noted that ICE officials were told 2,000 arrests a day was now the standard for enforcement. The agency has been instructed to assign 80 percent of its officers to arrest operations.

The fuel for this surge is fresh. President Trump signed a reconciliation package in June containing another $70 billion for immigration enforcement. ICE is now operating with the kind of financial firepower that comes once in a generation, and it is spending it like a company store.

Translation: the administration is not just building a deportation machine. It is building a deportation machine with a budget to match.

Who gets caught in this net? The Trump administration claims to target the "worst of the worst." The available data tells a different story. According to factcheck.org, the percentage of people arrested by ICE with no criminal convictions has tended to rise during the agency's mass detention efforts.

On the same weekend that the 10,000 arrests were being tallied, ICE briefly detained a 56-year-old Catholic nun from Nigeria, Sister Leticia Ugboaja, as she walked to church in McAllen, Texas. She works as a nurse.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse wrote on X: "The geniuses at ICE just arrested a Catholic nun, who practices as a nurse, as she was walking to church. Our Republican colleagues think they need even more money. Had enough?"

In Miami, a Nicaraguan father of two had an immigration court hearing set for 2027, but was arrested during a routine check-in. In Utah, a 48-year-old Mexican man was taken on his way to a soccer game, shattering his family, according to his wife.

The people being arrested are not fleeing the country. They are following the court's orders. They showed up to immigration hearings exactly when they were told. That is what got them taken.

The courthouse arrests have a special contempt for the law, quite literally. In early July, ICE agents arrested three men at Manhattan immigration courts, directly violating a federal court order from Judge Kevin Castel requiring ICE to revert to a 2021 policy that barred courthouse arrests in all but a narrow handful of exceptions.

The exceptions cover threats to national security or direct pursuit of a subject where no other arrest location is possible. ICE did not explain how any of the three men fit those criteria.

The Ecuadorian man arrested at 26 Federal Plaza and the Dominican man taken at 290 Broadway on the same day have been transferred to detention centers in Folkston, Georgia, and Newark, New Jersey. A third man, from Guatemala, was taken Monday and is being held at the Orange County Detention Facility in upstate New York.

Rep. Dan Goldman said the arrests were a "flagrant violation" of the court order. In their habeas corpus filings, Make the Road New York accused ICE of violating not just due process but the authority of the federal judiciary itself.

An ICE spokesperson denied any court order was violated, without explaining how the arrests fit the exceptions. Benjamin Remy of the New York Legal Assistance Group called it what it looked like: "That order is essentially being disregarded, and we've seen a pretty significant uptick in detentions."

The leadership at the top of the agency tells the story of how it got this way. ICE is currently run by Acting Director David Venturella, a former private prison executive. Trump has announced his intention to nominate former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer to lead the agency permanently. A record number of people have died in ICE custody under the second Trump administration.

Marcos Charles, the head of ICE's deportation wing, cheered the recent arrest surge in an email to agency personnel. "I want to personally thank each of you for your extraordinary efforts this past weekend," Charles wrote, according to the Times. "Through your dedication, professionalism, and unwavering commitment to our mission, enforcement and removal operations achieved remarkable operational results."

The phrase "extraordinary efforts" is being used to describe the mass detention of people who showed up to their court hearings.

In the year and a half since Trump returned to office and unleashed the agency as part of his mass deportation agenda, the strategy has been consistent: arrest as many people as the budget allows, challenge the court orders afterward, and keep the budget growing. The pattern has been found across jurisdictions, from Iowa to New York to California.

The $70 billion reconciliation package is not a one-time event. It is a signal. The administration is not looking for a target number. It is looking for capacity.

The question is not whether ICE has the resources to keep going. The question is whether the courts have the authority to stop them. An agency that ignores judicial orders and arrests Catholic nuns has already answered that question itself.