Immigration arrests of mostly noncriminals accelerated in Southern California in June
From June 1 and June 26, Immigration and Customs Enforcement data show 2,031 were arrested in a seven-county area. About 68% of those had no criminal convictions and an additional 57% had never been charged with a crime.
Nearly half of those arrested in June were Mexican nationals. Most were men, with a median age of 39.
Separately, a survey of 330 Mexicans in local detention centers, conducted by the Mexican Consulate between June 6 and July 6, found that half had lived in the U.S. for at least a decade, more than a third for more than 20 years, and nearly a third had American-born children.
The new information sheds light on the people caught up in the government's crackdown. The arrest data come from the Deportation Data Project, a group of lawyers and academics that received the information as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. It shows a continuing trend highlighted in earlier figures analyzed by The Times: aggressive enforcement operations in Los Angeles have largely pulled in immigrants without a criminal record.
'Trump and Stephen Miller don't care about removing the 'worst first' — they only care about arresting whoever they can to complete their massive arrest quotas,' said Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokeswoman for California Gov. Gavin Newsom. 'All they care about is mass chaos and mass detentions, instilling fear statewide, detaining and deporting children and families, terrifying people into submission and giving up their rights, all while threatening the very fabric of our society.'
California has been battling the Trump administration as it has zeroed in on Los Angeles, a Democratic bastion, as ground zero for its mass deportation campaign. Federal agents launched the sweeps June 6, drawing protesters and angry crowds, prompting President Trump to call in the National Guard and U.S. Marines.
Legal challenges have hampered the efforts. On Friday, in a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups against the Trump administration, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of President Biden, temporarily blocked federal agents in much of Southern California from using racial profiling to carry out immigration arrests. Since she issued her ruling, the indiscriminate raids at Home Depots and car washes have stopped.
The order is being challenged by U.S. Justice Department attorneys who are appealing the lawsuit and asking for an immediate pause of the order. And Department of Homeland Security officials have said they will not back down.
'Still hard at work catching criminal illegal aliens in #LosAngeles. We're not leaving until our mission is accomplished,' U.S. Border Patrol sector chief Gregory Bovino wrote Tuesday on X.
Bovino, based near the U.S.-Mexican border in Imperial County, has played a prominent role in the raids across Southern California. He and others in the administration have pushed back on the idea that agents are going after noncriminals.
'You think only noncriminal illegal aliens are hanging out at day laborer spots? Absolutely not true,' he posted on July 8, highlighting a Guatemalan man he said was picked up with an outstanding warrant in his home country for sexual aggression.
But as the raids and demonstrations have died down, on Tuesday, Trump released about half of the National Guard troops deployed in Los Angeles.
Nationwide, the average daily arrest rate in the U.S. was 1,139 for June 1-10, down to 990 for June 11-27. Nationwide, 27,500 people were arrested during those four weeks, and it is unclear from the data how many have been deported.
But the immigrants picked up off the streets in Southern California were even less likely to be criminals than those turned over to ICE by state or local authorities.
Of those arrested on the street, about 75% had no criminal convictions and 62% had no convictions or pending charges.
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