Arrests of immigrants without criminal convictions by ICE have surged 770%, while street arrests saw a more than 1,000% increase during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to a new analysis released Tuesday.
The analysis by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley found that ICE arrests more than quadrupled in that period, with transfers from jails and prisons roughly doubling. The much-increased street arrests took place in neighborhoods, at immigration court and at ICE field offices during regular immigration check-ins, the report said.
“Arrests not in jails or prisons at this order of magnitude are a new phenomenon. For both types of arrests, ICE was much less likely to target people with criminal convictions,” according to the analysis by the Deportation Data Project, which is led by a group of academics and lawyers that collect, post and analyze government immigration enforcement data.
The changes in enforcement led to a 770% increase in immigration arrests of people without criminal convictions, according to the analysis.
The project's analysis is based on data obtained through a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act and covers arrests through March 10, according to the report.
“It’s well known that ICE has been pursuing a campaign of indiscriminate arrests, but it’s less well known that even as ICE has arrested more people who likely could win their cases and stay in the United States, arrests have been ending more often in deportation,” report author David Hausman, co-director of the Deportation Data Project and assistant professor of law at UC Berkeley, said in a statement. “One big factor is that detention causes people to give up on their cases.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News that the Deportation Data Project had “cherry picked” data in order to “peddle a false narrative.”
The spokesperson added: “70% of ICE arrests are criminal illegal aliens. We are continuing to go after the worst of the worst — including gang members, pedophiles, and rapists.”
The DHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for data substantiating that 70%. The agency has previously said that 70% of its arrests are of people who have been either convicted or charged with a crime in the U.S.
The agency added that “every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally.” Crossing the border without authorization is a federal misdemeanor for a first offense. The administration has also arrested immigrants who entered the country legally.
“The Deportation Data Project relies on information releases that have not been reviewed, audited or given context,” the spokesperson said. “DHS nor ICE have verified the accuracy, methodology or the analysis of the project and its results. The bottom line is that the Deportation Data Project is not accurate.”
In response, the Deportation Data Project said that ICE had sent them its datasets in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and that it posted the original data.
“These are ICE’s own records of who is arrested, detained, and deported,” the project said.
The group also said it documented every step it took in analyzing the original data.
The project’s analysis also found that deportations of people who were already in the U.S. — versus migrants encountered at the border — increased by a factor of five during the first year of Trump’s second term. The report said this change was due to increases in detention space and a decrease of releases.
The administration also more than quadrupled the number of detention beds used for people arrested within the U.S., according to the analysis. That surge was due to both new funding and a decrease in border arrests, the report said.
Graeme Blair, co-director of the Deportation Data Project and professor of political science at UCLA, said in a statement that the analysis showed that arrests did not surge only in Democratic cities where the administration launched immigration enforcement operations, such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis.
“In fact, even at the peak of the Minneapolis surge, those arrests accounted for only 15% of nationwide street arrests,” Blair said. “The expansion is truly national.”
The project’s report follows its previous analysis of the first nine months of the Trump administration, which found that a jump in the number of street arrests led to an increase in the number of deportations of people who were in the U.S. by more than four and a half times.
