Immigration arrests have increased nationwide and more than doubled in 38 states in the months since President Trump took office, new data shows. Many states have seen even larger surges in enforcement activity in the last few weeks, after Mr. Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, demanded that agents make every effort to increase arrests.
Most of the arrests have occurred in states with large immigrant populations, including Florida and Texas, which also saw relatively high immigration enforcement under President Biden. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested more than 20,000 people in Texas since Jan. 20, even as border crossings have slowed significantly. The agency’s Miami field office, which covers Florida and Puerto Rico, has also arrested more than 11,000 people.
Other states with large immigrant populations, like New Jersey and New York, have seen relatively modest increases compared with the previous administration. Some of the sharpest increases in arrests have come in states across the South and the West that are friendly to Mr. Trump’s immigration policies.
The data offers the clearest look yet at the pattern and pace of immigration enforcement activities in the United States under Mr. Trump. It was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Deportation Data Project at the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, and covers immigration arrests by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division.
It shows that immigration agents immediately went to work in January to pursue Mr. Trump’s goal of deporting millions of unauthorized immigrants. Since the beginning of his term, ICE has more than doubled its daily immigration arrest rate, averaging 666 immigration arrests per day, compared with fewer than 300 per day in 2024.
As the crackdown reaches new heights, it has been met with protests across the country, including tense clashes between protesters, local law enforcement and federal agents in Los Angeles earlier this month.
But the arrest rate may still not be high enough for Mr. Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and the driving force behind much of the administration’s immigration policy. At a meeting on May 21 with leaders of ICE field offices, Mr. Miller set a target of 3,000 arrests per day. Arrests began to climb, and, in the first 10 days of June, the latest period the data covers, ICE made an average of more than 1,100 immigration arrests per day.
To reach that target, ICE has been pursuing more aggressive tactics like detaining immigrants at their routine check-ins, as well as at immigration court hearings. Many of those arrested in court have subsequently been fast-tracked for expedited removal, a quicker deportation process that denies them the chance to defend themselves in court.
At the end of 2024, about 5 percent of arrestees were processed through expedited removal. That shot up to 15 percent in June after the Trump administration stripped legal protections from many recently arrived migrants.
