One of Trump’s chief campaign promises was to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, starting with convicted criminals. But his administration has released only incomplete data on how successful it has been at that.
According to data posted on X, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 8,276 people between Jan. 22 and Jan. 31. It also issued 6,577 "detainers lodged" for people arrested by other law-enforcement agencies whom ICE has reason to believe are eligible for deportation. That's an average of 828 arrests and 658 detainers lodged per day.
That's a big increase from the last year of published statistics under former President Joe Biden's administration. Between Oct. 1, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024, ICE reported 113,431 arrests, or an average of 310 per day. So Trump is certainly cracking down on immigration more than his predecessor did.
However, it's not nearly the pace the Trump administration needs to hit if it wants to achieve its stated goal of deporting every undocumented immigrant. The Pew Research Center estimated there were 11.0 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 2022. If ICE were to arrest 828 people and lodge 658 detainers per day every day going forward, it would take over 20 years to arrest or lodge a detainer against 11.0 million people.
And there’s another problem: We don’t have data beyond that one week. ICE hasn’t shared how many people it arrested and lodged detainers against since Jan. 31; it’s possible that it has significantly increased or decreased the pace since then. ICE also hasn’t released data on what share of those arrested have been criminals. Despite the administration’s anecdotal claims, there have been numerous news reports of ICE arresting immigrants who haven’t done anything wrong other than being in the country illegally.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
