Ice arrests of migrants with no criminal history surging under Trump
The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency has exponentially increased the arrest and detention of immigrants without any criminal history since the second Trump administration took office, a data analysis by the Guardian shows.
The information sharply contradicts Donald Trump's claims the authorities are targeting 'criminals' for deportation as part of his aggressive anti-immigration agenda.
According to numbers gathered from Ice and the Vera Institute of Justice, after Trump returned to the White House in late January there was a steep surge in arrests of immigrants, in general. One of the sharpest increases in arrest numbers has been of immigrants with pending charges, who have not yet been convicted of any crimes.
But the biggest increase has been people with no charges at all. Between early January, right before the inauguration, and June, there has been an 807% increase in the arrest of immigrants with no criminal record.
The Department of Homeland Security and top White House officials continue to claim that Ice is targeting 'criminals' and 'criminal illegal aliens'. But the Ice data shows the agency is not just targeting those with criminal records. Being undocumented in the US is a civil infraction, not a criminal offense.
'The group of people arrested with only immigration violations used to be very, very small,' said Austin Kocher, an assistant research professor at Syracuse University. 'The data reflects the fact that Ice is in the community, arresting an awful lot of people who don't have criminal histories. It doesn't reflect what the agency has claimed they're doing, which is going after the hardened criminals first, which I don't think the data supports.'
Ice is certainly arresting people with criminal records, but the administration has not published data on what crimes people have been convicted of. Detailed statistics on arrestees is not available for 2025, but between October 2022 and November 2024, 78% of people arrested by the agency had a misdemeanor conviction or no conviction at all.
Only 21% of people over that two year time period had a felony criminal conviction, a Guardian analysis of monthly Ice enforcement and removal operations shows. It is impossible to know how many people arrested since January have a felony criminal conviction because the government has not released that data.
The sharpest increase in non-criminal arrests is following a late-May meeting, in which Trump administration officials yelled at top Ice officials, ordering them to arrest more immigrants. During that meeting, DHS secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller ordered Ice to arrest at least 3,000 people per day, which would be 1 million per year.
Trump ran on a campaign of engaging in 'mass deportations' and since he took office his administration has escalated its tactics to meet that goal.
As the Guardian reported this month, on 31 May, top Ice managers instructed officers throughout the country to 'turn the creative knob up to 11' to increase arrests. The internal Ice emails reviewed by the Guardian show officers were told to interview and potentially arrest 'collaterals', meaning people coincidentally present during an arrest. In the past, Ice typically targeted immigrants with arrest warrants. Now more people without any criminal history are being swept up in the dragnet.
And the Trump White House has ordered an increase in the number of officials engaging in immigration enforcement operations. Special agents from various federal law enforcement agencies – including the FBI, the DEA, the ATF and Homeland Security Investigations – have been delegated to perform immigration enforcement work. There has also been an increase in the number of local jurisdictions deputized by Ice to carry out immigration enforcement work.
The increase in immigration arrests has led to a rise in the number of people detained in Ice facilities nationwide. Kocher has been documenting these numbers closely, and tracked that as of 1 June, there were 51,302 people detained in immigration jails – the highest number since 2019.
According to Kocher, the Trump administration has increased the number of people in detention so quickly that it is challenging to provide meaningful oversight.
'We know that these facilities are overcrowded, they're over capacity for what they are designed for,' said Kocher. 'Practically speaking, it means people are sleeping on the floor, they may not be getting enough food, they're almost certainly not getting adequate medical care.'
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security told the Guardian that 'since the beginning of President Trump's second term, we have arrested over 236,000 illegal aliens and have deported over 207,000'. However, according to the government's own data, since October, 186,000 people have been booked into immigration detention for the first time. DHS did not respond to follow-up questions regarding the discrepancy between the government data and the numbers the Trump administration is publicizing.
Kocher said, in response to the discrepancy in the numbers: 'I think they're being dishonest and un-transparent because they are counting things in ways they have never been counted before to favor their political agenda and the perception they are trying to send to the base.'
For advocates, one of the most outrageous steps has been the practice of engaging in arrests at immigration courts around the country. Asylum seekers going through the lengthy legal process of requesting to stay in the US have been targeted by immigration officials. After government attorneys dismiss their cases, Ice officials waiting in hallways or lobbies have arrested asylum seekers.
Organizations are challenging the Trump administration's increasing efforts to arrest people at immigration courts.
Last week, Innovation Law Lab, a legal organization that represents immigrants in civil rights cases, filed a suit against the Trump administration in Oregon to block the practice of courthouse arrests.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
32 minutes ago
- The Independent
Police deploy tear gas as ‘No Kings' protesters rally against Trump
Tensions escalated during "No Kings" protests against Donald Trump on the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, 14 June, as police sought to disperse demonstrators with abrupt orders to leave. Protesters were pushed back by officers on horseback, and law enforcement also fired flash bangs and canisters of tear gas to clear out demonstrators after the formal event ended. Millions of people were estimated to have joined the protests in more than 2,000 communities, which took place the same day as a military parade in Washington, D.C., for the Army's 250th anniversary, which coincided with the president's birthday. Demonstrations protested what organisers described as Mr Trump's authoritarian agenda, including recent immigration raids that have rattled communities across the country, including in LA.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
US protesters on Trump: ‘He's shredding our constitution, our government'
Millions of protestors gathered across the US on Saturday across thousands of events to protest against Donald Trump's administration in a planned series of events called 'No Kings'. Organized by a coalition of groups, the demonstrations were largely peaceful, though they occurred on the same day Minnesota lawmakers were shot, and one killed, in political violence, and just a week after the federal government ordered military to descend on Los Angeles streets to quell protests there. The Guardian spoke to dozens of protesters across the country about the mass demonstrations. Here is what they said. A 56-year-old chef, originally from Argentina 'Other people have the right to work hard and make a life for themselves when they come from a country where they can't do that or are facing political oppression or are desperate,' he said. 'This is supposed to be the land of opportunity and a land built on immigrants.' 'It's a perverse show of power, unnecessarily,' he said of Trump's military parade in Washington. 'For the most part, the administration is pushing forth an agenda and people have been asleep at the wheel.' Major, 71, is an honorably discharged Vietnam veteran. Rusty is a retired chemical company employee Major said that he was there to protest everything that Trump has done over the past several decades, 'including not letting Black people rent his apartments in New York and arresting people for no reason just because they're people of color'. 'Being a veteran during the Vietnam era, I know a couple of guys who died in combat to fight for the things that Trump is destroying now.' 'If you don't stand up and make your voices heard, then change won't happen,' Rusty said. 'What he's doing is shredding our constitution, our government.' Forty-five-year-old e-commerce worker 'There's a decline at the top of the country's leadership in respecting the laws of the land that were designed to guard against the abuses that they are committing against the people who live here.' Dunphy said that he was protesting against the 'kidnapping by un-uniformed agents of quasi legal agencies,' Dunphy said. 'That's an 18th-century problem that we shouldn't be dealing with in the 21st century. There's a disregard of due process.' Dunphy said he hoped that the nationwide protests would encourage elected officials to vocally oppose Trump's presidency. 'My assessment of the past five months is that it's a dismantling of a government that we've worked so hard to build in response to the unjust way things used to be.' Minneapolis based accountant McGowan carried a sign with the names of the two lawmakers – Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman – and a red heart. He made it this morning after the news broke about the shootings. 'We all know, for Americans, that democracy doesn't come with a guarantee of safety, and that you fight for that kind of thing,' he said. 'We are all affected by not just by political violence, but all violence in our lives. And there's way too much of it – way too much gun violence, way too much television hate, way too much inhumanity to your neighbors, and we need to push back on that and to contribute civility to our common good.' Art conservationist Normally, she said, when you attend a rally, you feel pumped up and recommitted to the cause. 'It's like some of that, plus mourning. It's just horrifying, and it's all so upsetting,' Cheronis said. 'It's really sad, especially someone who was not even a divisive character, a complete and total public servant, who had no dreams of going to Washington or some bigger stage, really just kind of working hard for the people,' she said of Hortman. Mental health therapist 'Our flag has been conscripted by Maga, as though theirs is the only true patriotism,' one volunteer, mental health therapist Laura Gustavson, said, with an American flag. 'We're saying we're taking the flag back. It's part of our constitutional representation.' Seventeen-year-old high school student 'I want to represent my Mexican culture, but I'm an American as well,' said said Sanchez, whose flag bore the images of the US flag and Mexican flag side by side Miles, 64, and Urie, 74, traveled from Vermon Miles wore a sandwich board reading '$30M TAKEN FROM OUR MILITARY'. Urie's board said 'IT'S NOT ABOUT LEFT VS RIGHT. IT'S ABOUT RIGHT VS WRONG'. Despite the seemingly overwhelmingly pro-Trump orientation of the crowd, the pair said they had received a positive reception from some soldiers. 'People said they appreciated us making our view known,' Miles said. Army veteran, 40, who served in Iraq 'America does not do military parades like this,' he said. 'Everything is just authoritarianism. He's try to create chaos and become a dictator.' 'This is the nation's capital. This is exactly where we need to protest.'
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
‘No Kings' protests span 2,000 locations across the US
Nationwide 'No Kings' demonstrations spanned 2,000 locations, protesting against President Trump and his administration. Protests were largely peaceful, but clashes with police were reported in some areas, including downtown Los Angeles, where tear gas was used to disperse crowds. In San Francisco and Virginia, drivers struck protesters, with police investigating the incidents as possible intentional acts. Law enforcement officials in Texas evacuated the state capitol in Austin following a 'credible threat' to lawmakers attending the protests. Demonstrations took place in numerous cities, including West Palm Beach, Philadelphia, and New York, with speakers like Rep. Jamie Raskin and Martin Luther King Jr's eldest son addressing crowds.
