In October, there were 105 immigrant arrests at a horse racing track in Wilder, Idaho. Idaho experienced one of the nation’s largest increases in immigrant arrests this year through mid-October compared to the same period under the Biden administration. (Photo courtesy ACLU of Idaho)
Under the Trump administration, immigrant arrests continued to enhance through mid-October, reaching over 30,000 per month. But instead of the convicted criminals that the government says it is focusing on, a growing share of those arrests have been solely for immigration violations.
Immigrant arrests in 45 states have more than doubled during the Biden administration compared to the same period last year. The biggest increases: There were 1,190 arrests in the District of Columbia, compared to just seven last year under the Biden administration. Arrests were also more than five times higher in New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon and Virginia.
“The result runs counter to the administration’s goal of arresting the ‘worst of the worst,'” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. Increased enforcement is likely to lead to an enhance in “collateral arrests” of people found in the search for convicted criminals, he said.
Comparisons between the Trump and Biden administrations were calculated by Stateline in an analysis of data published by the Deportation Data Project, a Research initiative from the California universities of Berkeley and Los Angeles. Approximately 93% of arrests could be identified by state.
While more people have been arrested this year, a smaller percentage are convicted felons.
The share of immigrants arrested and convicted of violent crimes fell from 9% in January to less than 5% in October. The share under Biden was consistently between 10% and 11% over the same period in 2024.
The same trend applies to people arrested for immigration violations alone: Immigration violations alone accounted for 20% of arrests in April, rising to 44% of arrests in October, according to Stateline’s analysis.
In some states and the District of Columbia, the majority of arrests were for immigration violations alone: the District of Columbia (80%), New York (61%), Virginia (57%), Illinois (53%), West Virginia (51%), and Maryland (50%).
States with high immigrant populations also recorded the most arrests this year. The largest numerical increases were in Texas (up 29,403, three times the previous year), Florida (up 14,693, a four-fold enhance) and California (up 13,345, a four-fold enhance).
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The two states with the largest increases in arrest rates have responded very differently to President Donald Trump’s deportation mission.
“We will resist, like all democratic states,” New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in an interview with The Santa Fe New Mexican after last year’s election, referring to mass deportation plans. She proposed legislation to ban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in the state. The legislation failed this year, but Lujan Grisham urged the state legislature to reconsider next year. The state has three privately run ICE detention centers with capacity for 2,000 people.
Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little supports ICE under 287(g) agreement by transporting what his office calls “highly dangerous illegal foreign criminals” from county jails to federal prisons. The 53 men pictured on the governor’s website have charges ranging from drug possession to sexual assault.
In a press release, the office says the program aims to get people through an October “after they have completed their sentence.” Idaho Capital Sun review noted that some were transported despite charges being dismissed or pending.
Nationwide, arrests have risen this year from about 17,000 in February, the first full month of President Donald Trump’s current term, to more than 30,000 in September and October. The percentage of convicted criminals has fallen from 46% to 30%, although the number of convicted criminals arrested each month is still higher than under President Joe Biden.
Some of the policies that have led to a spike in arrests are facing modern lawsuits. This month, a federal judge blocked the government from making immigration arrests in the District of Columbia without a warrant or good cause.
In August, a Federal court blocked the government’s expansion of expedited deportation, allowing even quick deportations without judicial review. The government has appealed, arguing that immigrants who have been in the country without legal authorization for less than two years are not guaranteed due process.
According to one estimate, such rapid deportations could be applied to 2.5 million people Migration Policy Institute estimate released in September, including 1 million people released at the border with Mexico with court dates and 1.5 million people granted ephemeral protection such as humanitarian parole.
This fall, the share of immigrants arrested with criminal convictions continued to decline just before and during the federal government shutdown only 3% of those arrested and imprisoned Convictions occurred between Sept. 21 and Nov. 16, according to national information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data research organization at Syracuse University.
“As ICE arrests more and more people, the target population has shifted significantly to people without criminal convictions,” the said TRAC report noted.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify a reference to October incarceration statistics analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by State borderwhich is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes West Virginia Watch, and is a 501c(3) public charity supported by grants and a coalition of donors.
