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Tracking Over 2 Million ICE Arrests: A First Look

“The latest available case-by-case data now allows the public for the first time to track in some detail over 2 million ICE arrests from October 2008 through June 2018. Simultaneously released with this report is the first edition of TRAC’s “ICE Arrests” app. Here, users can examine ICE arrest activity along 15 separate dimensions. The data available covering October 2014 – October 2017 includes the state and county where each ICE arrest occurred. Since Trump assumed office, one-quarter (25%) of ICE apprehensions were individuals arrested at their home, place of work, or elsewhere in the wider community, including at courthouses or at DHS offices when the noncitizen had appeared for an appointment. The remaining three-quarters (75%) were “custodial” arrests where ICE assumed custody of individuals already being held by another law enforcement agency. A large number of these (22%) were serving prison time in federal and state prisons and were released to ICE at the end of their sentence. An even larger number (41%) had been arrested by local police or sheriff’s offices. A small additional component (6%) involved law enforcement agencies that were deputized to enforce immigration laws through ICE’s 287(g) program. Recent ICE arrests from local jails were dwarfed by the level of ICE activity during the first half of the Obama Administration. Then ICE assumed custody of between 12,000 and 14,000 noncitizens from local jails each month. Under Trump, the highest monthly total in August 2017 only reached 6,585. While this number was up sharply from the level of activity during the last two years of the Obama Administration, ICE arrest numbers now appear to have stabilized and indeed during FY 2018 are down slightly from their peak during FY 2017. In June 2018, for example, there were only 5,363 ICE arrests from this source. Despite stepped up enforcement efforts, ICE also appears to be taking into custody fewer individuals directly from state and federal prisons than was true under President Obama. ICE at-large or “community” arrests have increased. In March 2017 community arrests climbed to 4,275, but have fallen back slightly since then. For example, there were 3,345 community arrests during September 2017 and 3,216 during June 2018. For complete month-by-month figures covering October 2008 – June 2018 read the full report at: http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/529/.”

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