A new analysis of 1.6 million U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests suggests that the agency’s rapidly expanding enforcement activity during President Donald Trump’s second term has increasingly focused on people without criminal convictions. According to research published July 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, only 34% of people arrested by ICE during the first 14 months of the second Trump administration had a prior criminal conviction—a level the researchers describe as close to a historic low.
The study, titled “ICE arrests, 2015–2026: Variation in targeting, method, and geography,” examined arrest records from October 2015 through March 2026. Researchers analyzed when and where arrests occurred, how individuals were taken into custody and whether those arrested had previously been convicted of a crime. The dataset allowed the team to compare immigration enforcement across the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency, the first Trump administration, Joe Biden’s presidency and the opening period of Trump’s second term.
The results show that ICE activity increased sharply at the beginning of both Trump administrations. During the first 14 months of Trump’s first term, ICE made an average of 436 arrests per day—43% more than the daily average during Obama’s final year. During the first 14 months of Trump’s second term, that figure rose to 952 arrests per day, representing a 214% increase over the average recorded during Biden’s final year in office.
The composition of those arrests changed in the opposite direction from the administration’s public-safety messaging. In Trump’s first 14 months in office during his second term, only about one in three people arrested by ICE had a criminal conviction. That proportion compares with 52% during Biden’s final year, 70% during the first year of Trump’s first term and 79% during Obama’s final year.
The researchers describe this pattern as an inverse relationship between the scale of enforcement and the agency’s ability to concentrate on people with criminal convictions. As the total number of arrests increased, the share involving individuals with prior convictions declined. “Our results reveal that the reality of immigration enforcement diverges sharply from the public narrative that ICE arrests are necessary to protect public safety by removing people who commit crimes,” said lead author Chloe East, an associate professor of economics at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The study also identifies a major shift in the operational setting of ICE arrests. Historically, many people were transferred to immigration custody after they had already been detained by local, state or federal law enforcement. Increasingly, however, ICE agents have made arrests directly in the community, including at workplaces, schools, airports and other locations where people live and gather.
Before Trump’s second inauguration, community arrests accounted for only 17% of all ICE arrests, according to the analysis. That share subsequently climbed to nearly half. From a statistical perspective, the change indicates that the rise in enforcement was not simply the result of more cooperation with other law-enforcement agencies. It also reflected a broader use of direct apprehension strategies, which place immigration enforcement in everyday public settings rather than limiting it to people already held in the criminal legal system.
The geographic distribution of enforcement was uneven. During 2025 and 2026, metropolitan areas and enforcement regions associated with Democratic political strongholds—including Denver, Boston and Washington, D.C.—experienced especially large increases in community arrests. In the enforcement area that includes Denver, ICE arrests rose 220% at the beginning of Trump’s second term, while community arrests increased 269%. The findings suggest that local political environments, immigration populations, agency priorities and the availability of public spaces may all influence where enforcement intensifies.
The researchers warn that the consequences may extend beyond immigration policy. Previous studies have found that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born people. East said that repeatedly arresting people without criminal records could undermine public safety if residents become afraid to report crimes, cooperate with investigators or seek help from authorities. Her earlier research also found that heightened ICE enforcement can harm the economy by removing people from the labor force through arrest, detention and deportation, while causing others to work less because they fear being targeted. “Overall, our data provide important new evidence that simply increasing the funding and scale of ICE activity is unlikely to improve public safety,” East said.
Subject of Research: People
Article Title: ICE arrests, 2015–2026: Variation in targeting, method, and geography
News Publication Date: July 27, 2026
Web References: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2618096123; https://elisajacome.github.io/Jacome/incarcerationgap_abjpt_aeri.pdf; https://www.colorado.edu/today/2026/05/04/heightened-ice-enforcement-harms-us-born-workers-shrinks-workforce
References: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2618096123
Keywords: ICE arrests, immigration enforcement, criminal convictions, community arrests, public safety, deportation, immigration policy, labor market, social science, economics
