How many US citizens have been wrongfully detained by ICE in 2024?

1. What ICE’s official numbers show — and what they don’t

ICE’s statistics and FY2024 Annual Report present arrests, detentions and removals data for noncitizens and summarize detention populations, but those public dashboards and the FY2024 release do not report a tally of U.S. citizens who were mistakenly held in ICE custody; ICE frames its reporting around “aliens” and detention populations, not a count of wrongful citizen detentions ^{[1] [2]}.

2. Independent oversight finds ICE undercounts some detentions — but not wrongful citizen detentions

The U.S. Government Accountability Office found ICE understates the total number of people it detains by excluding certain initial “book-ins” at temporary facilities; GAO’s audit shows gaps in how ICE reports detentions overall, which complicates efforts to measure mistakes—but GAO’s work does not produce a net figure for U.S. citizens wrongfully detained in 2024 ^[5].

3. Lawsuits and advocacy groups document individual citizen cases, not a national total

Legal groups such as the National Immigrant Justice Center and state ACLU chapters have publicized cases where people later identified as U.S. citizens were detained or arrested by ICE and then released or litigated for relief; a 2025 filing described multiple clients, including a U.S. citizen detained for more than 10 hours, but those actions enumerate complaints rather than produce a verified nationwide count for 2024 ^[3].

4. Media and advocacy accounts report trends and allegations of wrongful detentions

Press and advocacy outlets covering expanded interior enforcement in 2025 report incidents and community concerns about wrongful detentions of U.S. citizens and lawful residents—these accounts describe patterns and consequences but do not claim to compile an exhaustive 2024 total, and some pieces focus on 2025 operations and policy changes ^{[4] [6]}.

5. Why producing a reliable 2024 number is difficult

Three structural obstacles block a firm count in available reporting: ^[7] ICE’s official datasets emphasize noncitizen metrics and exclude some initial book-ins ^{[1] [5]}; ^[8] wrongful citizen detentions are often resolved quickly, informally, or without formal tracking that would appear in public dashboards (available sources do not mention an ICE-maintained registry of citizen wrongful detentions); and ^[9] advocacy/legal tallies document cases selectively—by geography, legal action, or media attention—so they cannot be extrapolated to a national total without additional methodology ^{[3] [4]}.

6. Competing perspectives in the sources

ICE’s institutional messaging and statistical publications emphasize detention management, oversight, and care for detainees, presenting detention as systemically monitored ^{[10] [2]}. Civil-society organizations and some media outlets counter that expanded raids and certain enforcement practices have produced instances of wrongful detention and civil-rights harms, pointing to individual legal cases and community reports ^{[3] [4]}. GAO’s audit provides a fact-based critique of ICE’s public reporting methodology, saying ICE understates detention counts by omitting certain bookings ^[5].

7. What reporters and researchers could do next

To produce a defensible number, researchers would need ICE’s internal detention-transaction records, cross-referenced with citizenship verification outcomes and legal dispositions; GAO-style audits or FOIA-driven datasets could fill reporting gaps identified by the GAO ^[5]. Absent that, current public sources only support case-based accounting and systemic critiques—not a comprehensive 2024 total (available sources do not mention a verified nationwide figure for U.S. citizens wrongfully detained by ICE in 2024).

8. Bottom line for readers

There is credible evidence of individual wrongful arrests and detentions of U.S. citizens tied to ICE activity in recent years—and watchdogs say ICE’s public data undercount some detention events—but available sources do not provide a single, verified count of U.S. citizens wrongfully detained by ICE in 2024 ^{[5] [3] [4] [1]}. If you need an exact figure, the next step is seeking ICE’s internal records or GAO-style verification, neither of which is published in the sources provided here (available sources do not mention a published total).