New Data Reveals ICE Has Arrested Tens of Thousands With No Criminal Record Under 2025 Crackdown

08 December 2025

ICE and Border Patrol agents confront protestors outside an ICE processing facility near Chicago on Sept. 27, 2025. Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty

A new report has cast sharp light on the scale of arrests by U.S. immigration authorities, revealing that nearly 75,000 people rounded up by ICE between January and mid-October of 2025 had no record of prior criminal convictions. That figure amounts to almost one-third of the roughly 220,000 individuals detained by the agency during that period.

Most of those held in ICE custody in recent months do not have serious criminal charges or violent-crime backgrounds. Instead many are being detained solely for immigration-related violations often as a result of civil infractions such as overstaying visas, rather than crimes.

The data has sparked serious concern among immigrant-rights advocates and policy analysts. For them, it challenges a key narrative from the current administration: that mass arrests are focused on dangerous criminals, from gang members to violent offenders. As one expert observed, the numbers contradict repeated statements that arrests target the “worst of the worst.”

Since the beginning of 2025, ICE has ramped up interior enforcement dramatically. Arrests once reserved largely for those with criminal histories are now regularly targeting undocumented immigrants with no prior record. Critics warn that this shift is fueling arbitrary sweeps, racial profiling and sweeping detentions frequently of people with deep community ties, stable jobs and no history of violence.

In Chicago’s recent enforcement roundup part of a nationwide crackdown federal documents show that nearly 97% of those detained had no criminal record at the time of arrest. That figure echoes findings across other major cities such as Washington, D.C. and Minneapolis, further illustrating that arrests without prior conviction are not an isolated phenomenon but a systemic trend.

Legal experts argue that this approach raises serious civil-rights concerns. Detaining individuals without criminal records under immigration law blurs the line between civil enforcement and criminal punishment. Critics say ICE is now effectively functioning as a nationwide arrest force, capturing people simply for immigration status while ignoring due process safeguards.

The numbers also show how dramatically the demographics of detention have shifted. Recent reports found that as of mid-November, a majority of the people in ICE detention had no criminal convictions. Specifically, of the roughly 65,000 people held by the agency, nearly 48 percent had neither criminal charges nor convictions, a historic high.

That trend has reignited public debate over the purpose and ethics of ICE’s mass-arrest strategy. Supporters of the crackdown argue the agency is enforcing immigration laws and deterring illegal entry. But for many affected immigrants, advocates and civil-liberties groups, the results feel less like border security and more like widespread civil-rights violations.

When individuals are arrested without criminal histories, there is often little clarity about what precipitated their detention and even less communication from authorities. That uncertainty ripples through families, communities and workplaces, creating fear, instability and long-term trauma.

As the numbers continue to climb, pressure is mounting from immigrant-rights organizations, legal watchdogs and members of Congress to reevaluate the criteria for ICE arrests. Many argue that prioritizing individuals with violent or serious criminal convictions rather than sweeping up undocumented immigrants as a tactic of mass enforcement would better balance enforcement with civil-rights protections.

For now, the data stands as a stark metric of how mass-arrest policies are being implemented under current leadership and raises urgent questions about justice, discretion and the human cost of broad immigration sweep operations.