Over 50,000 Immigrants Now Detained, Highest Since 2019

ICE detention numbers are up alongside spike in new detention facilities and new 287(g) agreements. Nearly 25% of detainees now have no criminal histories.

According to the latest data published by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) late on Thursday, the number of immigrants held in detention on June 1 was 51,302—the highest number since September 2019 and the first time during this administration that the number crossed 50,000.¹

After a few weeks of relatively stagnant detention numbers, this sudden increase reflects the well-documented intensification of interior immigration enforcement across the country as well as the ongoing expansion of immigrant detention centers that started during the Biden administration.

ICE currently reports data on 155 detention facilities in use, up from 114 at the start of the Trump administration. (Since ICE only reports on detention facilities in use at the time of reporting, some smaller facilities come and go from the dataset.) A total of 47 detention facilities in use at the start of June were not reportedly in use back in January. This includes facilities—like the two family detention facilities in Texas—that have been used in the past but were not used recently. It also includes 6 new facilities in Florida, 4 in Nebraska, 4 in Kentucky, 4 in Ohio, and another 29 spread across much of the eastern half of the United States.

A map of new facilities is available below. The underlying data can be viewed and downloaded from the linked source in the caption.

See the interactive map with address data on BatchGeo here.

Alongside new detention facilities, ICE also continues to sign 287(g) agreements at a blistering rate that is now approaching 700 total active agreements. As of June 5, ICE had signed 678 total 287(g) agreements, more than half of which are the most aggressive “Task Force Model” form of the program. Many most 287(g) programs are pending ICE’s approval.

As I told NPR’s Morning Edition this week, while many law enforcement agencies want the enforcement authority that comes with 287(g) agreements and are eager to play into the politics of the moment, 287(g) agreements also have the potential to distract agencies from their public safety mission and consume limited local resources.

ICE’s latest detention data continues a trend I predicted back in January before we saw the first data out of the Trump administration. In that post, I predicted that: “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.”

ICE’s latest data reaffirms this. The largest growth in ICE’s detained population over the past two weeks comes from people who have no criminal charges or convictions on their record. That population increased by about 2,000, while the number of immigrants with pending charges increased by far less, and those with convictions increased only marginally. Nearly a quarter of all detained immigrants now have no criminal histories.

See the original table on Datawrapper here.

If we compare the relative growth of criminal histories in ICE’s currently detained population from the start of the Trump administration until now, the largest relative growth—by far—has come from immigrants with no criminal histories. That population has seen over a ninefold increase compared to much smaller relative growth for people with criminal charges and convictions.²

As we have seen, ICE arrests continue to drive detention numbers as border arrest numbers are at longtime lows.

That’s the latest detention data from ICE. I’d like to thank Anton Flores and the community in Atlanta, Georgia, for coming out yesterday to discuss immigration policy and data. They were the first to see this data, since ICE released a new detention spreadsheet about an hour before the presentation so we were able to incorporate it right away. Follow Anton’s work online. (See event details.)

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1. Due to the fact that the data only shows a single day’s population once every 14 days, it is possible that the total detained population crossed 50,000 on a day that was not publicly reported. This is the first time the publicly reported number crossed 50,000. Remember that this data is only “snapshot” data (i.e., single point in time data), which means that it does not capture total number of people who are processed through the system due to new book-ins and new releases, including deportations and releases back into the community.

2. For a discussion of the longstanding ethical debate about whether, and how, criminality should matter in immigration enforcement, see my previous discussion in this post here.