Report Reveals Stark Differences Between ICE Enforcement in Blue and Red States: 'Divergent Outcomes Based on Where People Live'

A CNN analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data shows a clear divide in how immigration arrests occur across states. In Republican-leaning states, 59% of ICE arrests happen inside prisons and jails, while in Democratic-leaning states, 70% of arrests take place in the community, such as workplaces and streets.

The difference reflects local policies: many blue states and cities have sanctuary laws limiting cooperation with ICE, especially around honoring detainer requests from jails without court warrants. In these areas, immigrants are often released before ICE can take custody, forcing the agency to rely on community arrests, as CNN explains.

The divide reflects the Trump administration's continued focus on challenging sanctuary cities across the country. Two weeks agos, following the highly-publicized shooting of an off-duty federal officer in New York and the subsequent arrest of two undocumented Dominican nationals in connection to the crime, border czar Thomas Homan vowed to increase ICE presence in sanctuary cities:

"What we're going to do [is deploy] more agents in New York City to look for that bad guy so sanctuary cities get exactly what they don't want – more agents in the community and more agents in the worksite. If we can't arrest that bad guy in the safety and security of the county jail, we'll arrest him in the community. And when we arrest him in the community, if he's with others that are in the country illegally, they are coming too"

In states like Massachusetts, which lacks a formal sanctuary law but restricts detainer enforcement due to a 2017 court ruling, ICE leans heavily on community arrests. There, 94% of arrests take place outside custody, and 78% of those detained have no criminal record.

In contrast, red states typically honor ICE detainer requests, resulting in more arrests in custody. For example, Mississippi arrested 87% of immigrants for whom ICE requested detainers, while New York, with sanctuary policies, arrested just 4% under similar requests.

Immigrant rights groups are accusing the administration of deliberately targeting immigrant-friendly states as retribution, with tactics meant to instill fear. In New England, aggressive raids—including ICE officers pulling immigrants from cars and detaining student activists—have alarmed residents and legal experts such as Daniel Kanstroom, a Boston College law professor who described the tactics to CNN as "mean-spirited" and "brutal."

The varying local laws and ICE tactics are creating a "patchwork system" across the country, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a lawyer and policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. As a result, immigrants are facing "really divergent outcomes based on where people live," she said.