Street Arrests of Immigrants Without Criminal History by ICE Have Soared 1,100% Since 2017: Study

A new report has revealed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is arresting noncriminal immigrants on the streets at historically high rates, with arrests of such individuals soaring by nearly 1,100% since 2017.

Citing newly released nonpublic data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by DeportationData.org, the Cato Institute reports that by early June 2025, ICE agents were arresting nearly 3,800 non-criminal immigrants per week outside of custodial settings—such as homes, workplaces, and public spaces—compared to 308 per week during the same period in 2017.

Overall, nearly 5,000 weekly "at-large" ICE arrests were being made in early June, up from 856 in June 2017. Of those, 79% targeted individuals with no criminal convictions. The data analyzed by Cato also indicates that 47% of ICE arrestees during the week of June 1–9 had neither a conviction nor any pending criminal charges.

The data contradicts public claims made by some Department of Homeland Security officials about ongoing arrests. For example, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin recently cited the arrest of a convicted rapist in Los Angeles as evidence of ICE targeting dangerous criminals. But Cato reports that during that same week almost three quarters (72%) of ICE arrestees in the Los Angeles area had no criminal convictions, and 59% had no criminal history or pending charges.

Internal ICE data obtained separately by NBC News and published on Wednesday reinforces these findings. Between October 1 and May 31, ICE arrested 185,042 people; of those, 65,041 had criminal convictions. The most common convictions were for immigration and traffic offenses. Nearly half of those in custody had neither a conviction nor any pending charge.

Despite previous ICE reports to Congress that over 13,000 people with homicide convictions and nearly 16,000 with sexual assault convictions were on its non-detained docket, only 752 individuals convicted of homicide and 1,693 convicted of sexual assault were arrested during the reporting period. This means that, at most, ICE detained 6% and 11% of known homicide and sexual assault offenders, respectively.

A senior DHS official told NBC that high-risk targets are harder to arrest than undocumented immigrants without criminal records. "They want everybody who cannot show their papers to get out of the country," the official said.