How many people does ICE arrest?
149K
18K
While criminal investigations and arrests are part of ICE’s mission, it is the administrative arrests made by ERO that are the focus of this page. ERO enforces immigration law — not criminal law — in the US interior, administratively arresting people outside the border regions who are in violation of the law (the border is handled by US Customs and Border Protection [CBP]). “Only noncitizens (also called aliens in US immigration law) who have civil immigration violations are subject to administrative arrest, a key distinction from the HSI arrests that target citizens and noncitizens alike for alleged criminal conduct relating to transnational crime.”
ICE made 102,410 administrative arrests from January to November 2024, putting them behind the 10-year (2014–2023) average of arrests through November, and behind the 2023 arrest numbers.
ICE arrests through November 2024 were 28% below the same time in 2023.
Administrative arrests conducted by the ERO division
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Based on Office of Homeland Security Statistics data that begins in FY 2014, monthly arrests have ranged from 2,450 in February 2021 to 19,040 in October 2013. Excluding February 2020–September 2021 when arrest totals dropped in response to factors including COVID-19, interim guidance under a new administration, and a reallocation by the Department of Homeland Security of ICE resources to the Southwest border to help CBP manage increased activity, the next-lowest monthly arrest total was 8,050 from January 2016.
The 8,310 ICE arrests in November 2024 were 54.3% below the recent monthly peak of 18,170 in January 2023.
Administrative arrests conducted by the ERO division
To make an administrative arrest, ICE first issues an administrative warrant, sometimes known as an ICE warrant. These warrants are not reviewed by judges and, unlike the judicial warrants issued for people accused of criminal conduct, do not permit ICE to enter people’s homes. This means ICE makes arrests either in public places (“at-large” arrests) or at jails and prisons in partnership with local, state, and federal law enforcement via transfers of custody (“custodial” arrests).
To effectuate custodial arrests, ICE can use immigration detainers — non-binding requests for law enforcement to hold a person for 48 hours beyond their intended release date. This tool allows ICE to arrest immigration violators that have criminal convictions or pending charges in a controlled environment. There have been more custodial arrests than at-large arrests in four out of the six years since FY 2019.
29% of arrests in FY 2024 were made in public places, which is down 30 percentage points from its peak in FY 2022.
ERO administrative arrests, at-large vs. custodial, by fiscal year
While administrative arrests focus on civil violations of immigration law, noncitizens who are administratively arrested may or may not have a criminal history. However, it is important to note that administrative arrests are not necessarily blind to an arrestee’s criminal history; enforcement priorities are set by the head of the Department of Homeland Security based on administration priorities as well as budget and personnel constraints.
Of the 113,430 administrative arrests In FY 2024, 57,690 people had been convicted of crimes and 55,740 had not. The latter group includes people with pending criminal charges but no convictions (42% of those without convictions) as well as immigration violators without any record or accusations of criminal conduct (58% of those without convictions).
In FY 2024, 51% of people arrested for immigration violations had previously been convicted of a crime.
ERO administrative arrests by criminality and fiscal year
The 57,690 people administratively arrested in FY 2024 with prior criminal convictions had an average of 3.4 convictions per person. ICE reports on 27 different categories of crimes, and three categories accounted for more than half of this group’s total convictions:
- Traffic offenses (24.7%)
- Immigration (15.5%)
- Dangerous drugs (14.1%)
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Methodology
USAFacts standardizes data, in areas such as time and demographics, to make it easier to understand and compare.
Page sources
USAFacts endeavors to share the most up-to-date information available. We sourced the data on this page directly from government agencies; however, the intervals at which agencies publish updated data vary.