ICE Has Arrested 75,000 with No Criminal Record

M.A. Dworkin

Washington, D.C. - New data from the well-respected University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project, shows that ICE arrests from January 20 to October 15, 2025, indicates that nearly 75,000 people with no criminal record have been arrested. These figures do not include arrests made by the Border Patrol, which has launched aggressive immigration operations in several cities in recent months.

More than one-third of the 220,000 people arrested by ICE officers in the first nine months of the Trump Administration had no criminal histories. This action is contrary to the President and his top officials repeatedly stating that their immigration operations would target murderers, rapists and gang members.

“It contradicts what the Administration has been saying about people who are convicted criminals and that they are going after the worst of the worst,’ said Ariel Ruiz Soto, Senior Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. 

The figures were obtained through a lawsuit brought against Immigration and Customs Enforcement by the Deportation Data Project. The data is compiled by an internal ICE office that handles arrest, detention and deportation data. The Administration stopped posting detailed information on ICE arrests in January 2025.

For arrestees with criminal histories, the data does not distinguish between those with a history of minor offenses and those who have committed more serious crimes, like rape and murder.

Border Patrol and ICE are both under the Department of Homeland Security but they are two different agencies with two different missions. Border Patrol agents typically operate along the southern and northern borders, but recently hundreds have been sent into major cities in the interior of the United States to track down undocumented immigrants. 

“This is the black box that we know nothing about,” Mr. Ruiz Soto said. “How many arrests is the Border Patrol making in the States? How many of those are leading to removals and under what conditions?’

The data also reveals that about 90% of the people ICE arrested were males. Mexican nationals accounted for the largest share of the overall arrests, with about 85,000, followed by nationals of Guatemala at 31,000 and Honduras at 24,000. More than 60% of those were between the ages of 25 and 45.

“Now we’re really feeling the pain in the workforce,” said George Carrillo, Chief Executive Officer of the Hispanic Construction Council.

Mr. Carrillo did praise the Trump Administration for its efforts to secure the border, but said the ongoing enforcement operations are having a significant impact on companies that employ migrant workers.

“Now even the most conservative Republicans are feeling it and understanding that, hey, something different has to be done because now it is affecting their businesses,” said Mr. Carrillo. “And they’re worried about this strategy.” 

ICE field officials have been under intense pressure to ramp up arrests. In mid-May, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephan Miller threatened to fire senior ICE officials if they did not begin arresting at least 3,000 migrants per day. But the new data shows that ICE is still falling well short of those targets.  

ICE is currently holding 65,000 migrants in detention centers around the country.