New Data Analysis: Who is Being Arrested by ICE?
The image of masked agents pulling people into unmarked cars and holding them in isolation prisons in the U.S. or other countries is bone-chilling to many Americans who have long fought for our liberties and civil rights.
Across the country, from Los Angeles to Chicago to North Carolina, public outrage is growing against the scale and tactics of ICE arrests. A July 11 Gallup poll shows that support for the Trump administration’s approach to immigration is falling fast, with just 35 percent of Americans now approving of the Trump Administration’s handling of immigration, while 62 percent disapprove.
As the 2025 reconciliation bill triples the budget for ICE and creates a $10 billion slush fund for the Department of Homeland Security, it is a good time to ask: Who is being arrested by ICE?
Chloe N. East, an economics professor at University of Colorado and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, has been at the forefront of econometric analysis showing the ways mass deportations hurt the U.S. economy and U.S.-born workers (a point expanded upon recently by Ben Zipperer at the Economic Policy Institute). In a new report for Immigration Research Initiative, East and her co-author Elizabeth Cox examine new data about ICE arrests and show who is being caught up in the dragnet.
The analysis shows that every time ICE arrests increase, there is a decline in the percentage of immigrants arrested who are reported as “criminals”—people with a criminal conviction, including some whose charges have been dismissed or are still pending. A lot of people being arrested are moms that overstayed visas, construction workers who lost Temporary Protected Status and had their working papers stripped away, or home health aides who can to the US to raise their families in safety.
Coinciding with increased number of arrests and decreased percent with criminal convictions, the analysis notes, are the introduction of ICE arrest quotas and an increased use of aggressive tactics that take immigrants directly and indiscriminately from communities.
Finally, the report shows that the impact has been particularly intense in some parts of the country, including the ICE areas of responsibility around Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans and San Antonio.