Immigration Data and ICE Arrests: Gaps, Facts, and Questions

A surge of immigration raids has struck Southern California, now supported by the National Guard, facing significant pushback from local communities. More operations may be anticipated, as Tom Homan, the Trump administration's “border czar,” announced that enforcement efforts would occur in Los Angeles “every day.”Despite escalating raids, these actions have not significantly increased immigration court cases. Data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University indicates that U.S. arrests and detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rose to nearly 24,000 in May from 12,000 in January. Nonetheless, total detentions increased only modestly, from 22,000 to 29,000, following a decline in arrests by Customs and Border Protection.ICE housed over 51,000 detainees as of June 1, the highest count since 2019. In recent trends, over 40% of detainees lack any criminal record, prompting researchers like Austin Kocher to assert that the administration's enforcement tactics are increasingly focused on non-criminal individuals. Meanwhile, new immigration case filings have sharply declined amid this enforcement surge, raising questions about the overall impact of these actions on immigration court backlogs.