US immigration enforcement officers arrested extra folks within the first 22 days of February 2025 than in any month during the last seven years, in keeping with a Guardian overview of Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) knowledge.
The Guardian overview, which analyzed DHS knowledge from the primary month of Donald Trump’s presidency, along with interviews with immigration attorneys, advocates and former Ice officers, present how the administration has remodeled immigration enforcement within the US inside only a few weeks.
In a rush to satisfy Trump’s purpose of “mass deportations”, the administration has moved to rapidly shut the US southern border – suspending the asylum program and different Biden-era applications that supplied humanitarian aid. Concurrently, it has amped up immigration enforcement within the inside of the nation.
Immigration officers will not be solely arresting extra folks, but in addition putting rising numbers in detention. DHS introduced on Tuesday that immigration detention had been stuffed to capability, with 47,600 detainees.
The Guardian evaluation additionally reveals that whereas the administration says it has been concentrating on “criminals”, Ice enforcement as an alternative has grow to be extra indiscriminate. And it exhibits that because the administration tries to ramp up arrests, it’s reshaping the connection between federal immigration authorities and native legislation enforcement.
“What we’re seeing is an actual scattershot of various ways,” mentioned Gracie Willis, a fast response lawyer on the Nationwide Immigration Undertaking, a membership group for attorneys and immigration advocates.
Each Democratic and Republican administrations have enacted harsh immigration insurance policies, Willis added. However the Biden administration had at the least made clear which immigrants it was prioritizing for detention and elimination, she argued. “We had an concept of which purchasers could be in danger,” she mentioned. “Now, I believe there’s this lack of predictability.”
Indiscriminate enforcement
Immigration brokers made an enormous present of pressure inside the first weeks of the Trump administration, staging flashy televised raids, purportedly in pursuit of criminals and gang members.
Ice highlighted pictures of its brokers in bulletproof vests, alongside their counterparts from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Company and the US marshals, descending on residence complexes looking for members of the Tren de Aragua gang. In day by day social media posts throughout the first days of the brand new administration, Ice shared the names and pictures of alleged criminals and fugitives that they had arrested.
However the administration’s insurance policies and arrest knowledge over the previous month reveal a distinct focus.
One in all Trump’s first actions as president was to roll again a Biden-era memo that directed Ice enforcement brokers to prioritize the arrests of people that posed threats to nationwide safety and public security. As an alternative, the Trump administration made clear that it considers anybody who’s within the US with out a authorized standing topic to arrest and elimination.
Between 12 January and 9 February, the variety of immigrants detained by Ice who had no prison conviction or pending prison cost noticed a 221% enhance, in keeping with an evaluation by the political and authorized geographer Austin Kocher.
In November 2024, folks with out prison convictions made up about 6% of individuals in Ice detention, in keeping with federal knowledge. By February 2024, that quantity went as much as 16%.
“It’s completely the case that Ice enforcement seems to be changing into extra indiscriminate,” mentioned David Hausman, assistant professor on the College of California at Berkeley’s legislation faculty. “First, we all know they’re making an attempt to maximise the variety of arrests every day, which suggests they will’t be as considerate about what they’re doing. And second, they explicitly have the purpose of spreading worry amongst immigrants in the USA, and indiscriminate arrests accomplish that as nicely.”
“In case your purpose is to extend the variety of deportations, you possibly can’t hit massive numbers of removals with out specializing in the non-criminal inhabitants,” mentioned John Sandweg, who served as an appearing director of Ice throughout the Obama administration.
It’s not that the earlier administration didn’t arrest and deport immigrants with out prison histories. However the Trump administration has reoriented the company’s enforcement technique in an effort to meet the president’s zeal to hurry deportations, Sandweg mentioned.
“There are some dangerous guys on this nation,” he mentioned. “However getting them requires extra conventional detective work … going out and constructing informants in communities, discovering out who’s preying on the immigrant communities and getting folks in these communities to cooperate, speak and share data.” It might probably take tons of of hours of labor to e-book only one individual accused of significant crimes or gang-related prices, he mentioned, whereas indiscriminately arresting anybody with out authorized standing is fast.
Granular knowledge on who the Trump administration is arresting is more durable to come back by than detention knowledge. DHS’s workplace of homeland safety statistics publishes detailed arrest knowledge for Ice, breaking down the variety of arrests by prison historical past. However the knowledge from OHSS hasn’t been up to date since November 2024. Between October 2022 and November 2024, 78% of individuals arrested by the company had a misdemeanor conviction or no conviction in any respect.
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In some circumstances, it’s doubtless that brokers have been in search of addresses the place immigrants with both prison histories or elimination orders had resided, mentioned Veronica Cardenas, an immigration lawyer and former assistant chief counsel to Ice. But when the focused individual or folks aren’t dwelling, or have moved out, brokers should attempt to verify the immigration standing of whoever is there, and arrest them in the event that they’re undocumented.
“One in all my purchasers informed me that he lives in a house the place the previous resident of that residence had an order of elimination,” Cardenas mentioned. “That’s dangerous, as a result of in the event that they go searching for that former resident, as a result of he nonetheless will get mail there, they’re going to search out my consumer. And so they might have the authority to detain them.”
Immigration advocates are additionally more and more involved that purchasers who’ve been positioned beneath digital monitoring, together with telephone apps and ankle screens, will likely be in danger for arrest or elimination orders. It’s nonetheless unclear to what extent the federal authorities is concentrating on immigrants utilizing digital surveillance methods, however attorneys and advocacy teams have reported that some have been referred to as into detention or issued elimination orders in current weeks.
“These will not be individuals who have had any form of a standing change,” mentioned Willis, of the Nationwide Immigration Undertaking. “These aren’t people who find themselves doing hurt of their communities. They’re complying with what’s required of them.” However as a result of the federal government is aware of precisely who they’re, and the place they’re, mentioned Willis – they may very well be particularly susceptible to immigration enforcement.
A brand new relationship with legislation enforcement
Because the administration tries to ramp up arrests, it’s also reshaping the connection between federal immigration authorities and native legislation enforcement. Since Trump took workplace, the Trump administration has authorised greater than 226 new agreements beneath the 287(g) program, which permits state and native legislation enforcement officers to collaborate with the federal authorities to implement immigration legal guidelines.
In contrast, there have been no new agreements finalized beneath this system constituted of December 2020 and February 2025, together with by means of the period of the Biden administration.
The 287(g) agreements have allowed native legislation enforcement to establish and course of individuals who have been arrested, and allowed Ice to coach native officers to service Ice administrative warrants. A 3rd sort of 287(g) settlement, referred to as the taskforce mannequin, granted native legislation enforcement businesses lots of the similar powers as Ice brokers – nevertheless it was discontinued in January 2013 after an Ice coverage memo discovered them to be much less efficient. Advocates have identified that these applications particularly encourage racial profiling by native legislation enforcement – encouraging officers to scrutinize anybody who could appear like an immigrant.
The Trump administration, nevertheless, is making an attempt to convey them again, describing these applications as a “pressure multiplier”. Of the 226 new memorandums of understanding (MOUs) signed in 2025, 141 have been for brand new taskforce 287(g) applications.
These new agreements might enhance policing in immigrant communities which can be already seeing big disruptions to their day by day lives as Ice and different federal brokers more and more patrol neighborhoods and residential areas.
“Too typically, immigrant communities are focused by Ice due to what they appear like, the identical approach the policing system criminalizes folks of shade,” mentioned Laura Rivera, a senior workers lawyer at Simply Futures Legislation, an immigration authorized agency. “And more and more, the company appears to be concentrating on people who find themselves within the incorrect place on the incorrect time.”
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