Immigration enforcement
Updated May 27, 2026
Immigration enforcement is an issue of ever-increasing importance for policymakers. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — which is home to both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection — increased by 90.5% in the last 10 years. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 increased DHS funding an additional $178 billion over four years, with the money specifically earmarked for immigration enforcement.
This recent funding increase, along with executive orders and proclamations from the second Trump administration, DHS memos outlining new policies, and proposed changes to the Code of Federal Regulations, represents a new approach to immigration enforcement. The result is more agents, more detention capacity, and changes to agency policy and strategy.
This brief reviews the data on enforcement actions at the border, the interior, and in the immigration courts.
Some key takeaways:
Border enforcement
- In 2025, Customs and Border Protection enforcement actions fell 83% to 391,000. That’s down from 2.3 million in 2024 and 3.3 million in 2023.
Interior enforcement
- There were 320,000 ICE deportations in fiscal year (FY) 2025, up 18% from FY 2024. There were 365,500 ICE detention book-ins (a proxy for arrests), up 29.7% over 2024. Still, book-ins were below 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2019 levels.
- In 2025, 38% of people administratively arrested by ICE had previously been convicted of a crime, down from 66% the previous year. The highest percentage was in 2021 at 82%.
Immigration courts
- Through the third quarter of FY 2025, pending immigration cases fell by 87,300 to 3.8 million from nearly 3.9 million in FY 2024.
- There were 557 immigration judges at The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, down 24% from the peak of 735 in FY 2024. (This number excludes temporary immigration judges.)
