Number of Detained Immigrants with No Criminal History Continues to Grow

Here's the latest ICE detention data with key findings and graphics.

For the first time since the start of the current Trump administration, immigrants with no criminal convictions make up the objectively largest group of people arrested and detained by ICE. According to the latest data, 16,523 immigrants in detention have no criminal charges or convictions, now the largest of these groups—a significant increase since the previous data points, while those with charges and convictions remained static. By contrast, the number of people in detention with criminal charges and convictions is actually down over the past month.

None of this is a surprise to long-time readers of this Substack newsletter. Back on February 3, I laid out the basic data-informed reasoning behind my definitive claim: “A review of the available data reveals a simple empirical reality: the only way for the Trump administration to increase all of its immigration enforcement numbers (arrests, detentions, deportations, etc.) is to target people who have no criminal convictions.” The latest data is further evidence for this earlier claim.

Remember that I focus here only on people arrested by ICE; when we include detainees arrested by CBP, 46 percent of all detainees in mid-September had only immigration violations.

The total detained population is still just shy of 60,000, but with the new fiscal year starting soon—and new budgets to go with it—we could see this grow again fairly quickly.

The daily rate of ICE arrests across the country increased in the past few weeks, driving my estimate for September upward to over 30,000 from my previous estimate of around 25,000. This is much higher than the end of the Biden administration, but below the peak in June.

The trend in ICE’s Alternatives to Detention enrollment continues, with ICE shuffling people off of the smartphone tracking app known as SmartLINK and ramping up the number of people on the more punitive GPS ankle monitors.

With a longer look back to 2020, we can see that ankle monitor usage is on its way to reaching, or exceeding, the previous high of around 35,000.

Please use these graphs and the underlying data in any way that is helpful to you. You don’t need to ask permission, but do provide attribution and a link back to this post.

Here is the detailed table of the detained population for reference. It’s getting quite long, so at some point I’ll have to link to it rather than embedding it.

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