Where can I find state‑by‑state ICE staffing or field office personnel data for 2025?
Executive summary
The clearest starting point for state‑by‑state ICE staffing or field office personnel data for 2025 is ICE’s own “ICE Staffing Charts” FOIA page, supplemented by DHS budget and program reports and investigative datasets compiled by journalists and policy researchers; official counts have shifted rapidly in 2025 as ICE conducted an unprecedented hiring surge that roughly doubled its officer workforce [1] [2] [3]. Independent trackers and reporting provide useful breakdowns and context but researchers must treat location and coding details with caution because ICE’s public data have contained incomplete location information and shifting categorization practices [4].
1. Where to start: ICE’s official staffing charts and FOIA page
ICE publishes staffing charts via its FOIA/records page, which is the primary source to request or download the agency’s internal personnel breakdowns and should be the first stop for anyone seeking state‑level counts or field office rosters [1]; because it is an agency FOIA category page, it can contain spreadsheets, historical snapshots, and documents that agencies themselves produce.
2. Use DHS budget, program and public reports to triangulate numbers
DHS and ICE have issued public statements and program reports documenting the 2025 recruitment surge — including claims that ICE moved from roughly 10,000 to about 22,000 officers and agents over the year — and DHS budget and program files provide supporting context on funding, hiring targets and deployment that can corroborate or explain shifts visible in staffing tables [2] [3] [5].
3. Complement with investigative reporting and third‑party datasets
Journalistic outlets and policy groups tracking enforcement operations have produced state‑level analyses and timelines that often parse ICE’s national figures down to field offices or arrest locations; Government Executive’s coverage and the Deportation Data Project used by Prison Policy are examples of third‑party work that can reveal where personnel were deployed and how operations changed over 2025 [2] [6] [4]. These sources are valuable when ICE’s own public tables lack timely granularity.
4. Expect—and account for—data quality problems and political messaging
ICE and DHS have touted recruitment milestones aggressively in press releases and agency briefings, with ICE and DHS officials highlighting hundreds of thousands of applicants and tens of thousands of hires in 2025, but outside observers have raised questions about changes to hiring standards, accelerated training timelines, and calls for GAO review — all of which can affect how and when personnel are recorded in official datasets [7] [8] [9]. Moreover, analysts have documented ICE data containing a large number of cases with incomplete location information and evolving coding practices, meaning state counts derived from operational datasets may under‑ or mis‑attribute personnel or activity unless corrected [4].
5. If state breakdowns are not in ICE’s public files: FOIA requests, GAO reports and academic partners
When the FOIA staffing charts do not include the desired state‑by‑state granularity, the next steps are to file targeted FOIA requests for field office rosters and deployment logs (the ICE FOIA category is the procedural gateway) and to consult Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviews or congressional staff analyses that examine ICE hiring and deployment practices; these oversight reports often contain reconciled, audited breakdowns that media pieces and researchers rely on [1] [9] [5].
6. Bottom line: authoritative sources and healthy skepticism
Authoritative, state‑level personnel data come first from ICE’s FOIA staffing charts and DHS program/budget materials and are usefully supplemented by investigative outlets and projects such as Government Executive and the Deportation Data Project, but users must approach the numbers with skepticism because of rapid hiring, internal classification changes, and documented location coding problems that have affected 2025 reporting [1] [2] [4]. If precise, audited state‑by‑state totals are required for legal or academic work, seek FOIA pulls and oversight reports rather than relying solely on press statements or headline totals [7] [9].