DEPORTATIONSAn Ever Larger Share of ICE’s Arrested Immigrants Have No Criminal Record
Immigration arrests under the Trump administration continued to increase, but rather than the convicted criminals the administration has said it’s focused on, an ever-larger share of those arrests were for solely immigration violations.
Immigration arrests under the Trump administration continued to increase through mid-October, reaching rates of more than 30,000 a month. But, rather than the convicted criminals the administration has said it’s focused on, an ever-larger share of those arrests were for solely immigration violations.
In 45 states, immigration arrests more than doubled compared with the same period last year, during the Biden administration. The largest increases: There were 1,190 arrests in the District of Columbia compared with just seven last year under the Biden administration. Arrests were also more than five times higher in New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon and Virginia.
“The result stands in contrast to the administration’s objective of arresting the ‘worst of the worst,’” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. Heightened enforcement is likely increasing “collateral” arrests of people found during searches for convicted criminals, he said.
Comparisons between the Trump and Biden administrations were calculated by Stateline in an analysis of data released by the Deportation Data Project, a research initiative by the universities of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles. About 93% of arrests could be identified by state.
While more people were arrested this year, a lower percentage are convicted criminals.
The share of arrested immigrants who had been convicted of violent crimes has dropped from 9% in January to less than 5% in October. The share under Biden was consistently between 10% and 11% during the same period in 2024.
The same trend applies to people arrested solely on immigration violations: Immigration violations alone were behind 20% in April, then rose to 44% of arrests in October, according to Stateline’s analysis.
In some states and the District of Columbia, a majority of arrests were for immigration violations alone: the District of Columbia (80%), New York (61%), Virginia (57%), Illinois (53%), West Virginia (51%) and Maryland (50%).
States with high immigrant populations also saw the most arrests this year. The largest numeric increases were in Texas (up 29,403, triple last year’s figure), Florida (up 14,693, a fourfold increase) and California (up 13,345, a fourfold increase).
The two states with the largest arrest rate increases have responded very differently to President Donald Trump’s deportation mission.
