As Immigration and Customs Enforcement tries to meet the White House’s demands for increased deportations, agents are facing even more virulent protests in cities where they are operating. In recent days, dozens of protesters have been arrested for demonstrating against the agency as its masked agents round up people accused of being in the country illegally. 

The administration is so far falling well short of its goal of deporting at least one million migrants per year from the United States. The most recent data from May shows that in the first four months of President Trump’s second term, ICE removed 72,000 from the country, though the budget bill making its way through Congress could supercharge that effort, with tens of thousands of new agents set to be hired and additional funding planned for the deportation operations. 

Even though the White House has not significantly increased the number of removals, ICE is facing hostility from the public, especially following the deportation of migrant students and non-criminals who have long lived in America. 

A rowdy demonstration kicked off in Manhattan last week after several migrants were detained by agents during their check-ins with authorities at an immigration court. After plainclothes ICE officers made the arrests, dozens of protesters descended on the immigration court. 

“Since you have refused to leave the roadway, you will be placed under arrest on the charge of disorderly conduct,” a voice said as several demonstrators were being placed in handcuffs outside of the immigration court in lower Manhattan. Protesters clashed directly with New York City police officers, pushing back at them and even using a bike rack to shove officers. 

In Massachusetts, a parade of protesters marched through the streets to demand Democratic leadership of their state do more to fight the Trump administration and ICE. One speaker at a rally on Boston Common called on the state attorney general to prosecute agents for kidnapping Massachusetts residents who were complying with federal immigration law. 

A Harvard student, Leo Gerden, who is from Sweden, took the microphone to decry the president’s use of a “private army” to go after migrants. The president is now locked in a legal battle with Harvard to try to block its ability to enroll foreign students because the university is not complying with other administration demands. 

“He is using ICE as his private army, and in such a country, no one is safe,” Mr. Gerden told the crowd. “Even if you’re a citizen, you won’t be able to prove it without due process.”

In Florida — where hundreds of thousands of Central and Latin American refugees recently had their protected status revoked — communities are also lashing out at ICE. On Saturday, a large protest was held at the state capitol building after an immigration raid on Thursday led to the arrest of more than 100 migrant construction workers in the Tallahassee area. 

The new anti-ICE protests of 2025 echo the demonstrations that took place early on in the first Trump administration. At that time, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party began embracing the idea that ICE should be abolished altogether — a demand that faded into the background during the Biden administration. 

But some are renewing those calls to abolish the agency as officers are arresting migrants complying with the asylum-seeking process. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Crotez — one of the fiercest advocates for scrapping the agency back in 2018 and 2019 — said in a recent fundraising email that she still supports dismantling ICE. 

“I believe that ICE, an agency that was just formed in 2003 during the Patriot Act era, is a rogue agency that should not exist,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wrote in the message to supporters. 

A number of recent high-profile detentions and deportations — including that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a maximum security prison in El Salvador — has helped increase the salience and what some see as the cruelty of shipping longtime residents of the United States abroad. 

In April, the one issue where Mr. Trump had a net positive approval rating — handling of immigration — flipped negative. According to one CNN poll in February, 45 percent of Americans said the president as going too far with his deportations, while 55 percent said the number of deportations were either “about right” or not going far enough. 

By the end of April, 52 percent said the operations were going too far, while 47 percent said they were either “about right” or not going far enough. In March, 51 percent of voters said they approved of how Mr. Trump was handling the immigration issue, though that had slid to 45 percent by the end of April.