How have ‘at‑large’ and roving patrol arrest numbers changed year‑over‑year and who is being targeted?
Executive summary
Interior immigration arrest tactics described as “at‑large” and “roving patrol” rose sharply during the early Trump administration, with one advocacy analysis reporting a 2,450% increase in arrests of people with no criminal record driven by those tactics in the first year, and ICE expanding detention capacity into tent camps that year [1]. At the same time, national arrest volumes broadly declined over the past decade and fell sharply in 2020, and detailed, up‑to‑date federal demographic arrest statistics are limited because the government stopped publishing some breakdowns after 2020, making precise year‑over‑year accounting for these specific tactics difficult [2] [3] [4].
1. At‑large and roving patrols surged in 2017 according to immigrant‑rights researchers
A policy brief from the American Immigration Council highlights that arrests of people without criminal records increased 2,450% in President Trump’s first year and attributes much of that leap to expanded tactics such as “at‑large” arrests, roving patrols, worksite raids, and re‑arrests at check‑ins and hearings, and it documents ICE moving detainees into many more facilities and improvised tent camps as interior arrests rose [1]. That claim is central to the narrative about a sharp, policy‑driven pivot toward interior enforcement, but it originates from advocacy reporting and aggregates multiple tactics rather than isolating a single, standardized metric for “at‑large” or “roving” operations [1].
2. Broader arrest trends complicate the picture: fewer arrests overall, but enforcement priorities shifted
Independent datasets compiled by researchers show that total arrests in the U.S. fell substantially over the 2006–2016 decade and dropped further in 2020, and arrests have remained lower since the pandemic—trends that mask targeted spikes when enforcement priorities change [2] [5]. The Council on Criminal Justice rebuilt national arrest rates through 2024 to restore demographic visibility because federal reporting paused, underscoring that year‑over‑year comparisons of specialized tactics require piecing together imperfect sources [3] [4].
3. Who was being targeted: immigration status, non‑criminal records, and racialized communities
Advocacy reporting and case narratives point to non‑criminal immigrants—including DACA recipients and people attending routine immigration check‑ins—being swept up by at‑large and roving enforcement, with re‑arrests and worksite actions singled out as mechanisms for capturing people without new criminal convictions [1]. More broadly, long‑standing research on policing shows arrest practices are racially disparate and concentrated in marginalized communities, and traffic‑stop and arrest datasets reveal Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities face disproportionate enforcement exposure—context that should inform interpretation of who bears the brunt when interior enforcement intensifies [6] [7] [8].
4. Data gaps, reporting biases, and institutional agendas limit certainty
Reliable, standardized national counts of “at‑large” and “roving” arrests do not exist in public federal time series the way UCR totals or NIBRS incident data do; law enforcement reporting is voluntary and uneven, and the federal government stopped publishing some demographic arrest tables after 2020, forcing researchers to reconstruct trends from multiple sources [8] [4] [5]. The American Immigration Council is an advocacy organization whose analysis highlights harms and policy change, so its figures should be read as powerful evidence of a major enforcement shift but also as one perspective among others [1].
5. What can be concluded and where uncertainty remains
The best supported conclusion is that interior enforcement tactics expanded decisively in 2017 and targeted many people without new criminal convictions—producing large percent increases in certain arrest categories reported by advocacy groups—and that these shifts occurred against a backdrop of falling aggregate arrest volumes and persistent racial and socioeconomic disparities in policing [1] [2] [6]. What cannot be precisely stated from the available public sources is a consistent, year‑by‑year numeric series isolating “at‑large” or “roving patrol” arrests nationwide post‑2016; answering that requires access to standardized ICE operational logs or a renewed federal demographic arrest publication [4] [5].