How often has ICE mistakenly detained U.S. citizens in recent years?

1. What the investigative counts show — concentrated, documented incidents

Journalistic investigations, court filings and advocacy groups have compiled dozens to “more than 170” instances in 2025 in which people identified as U.S. citizens were detained, questioned, or held by immigration agents during sweeps and raids; ProPublica’s count and follow-up coverage are the most-cited examples referenced by outlets including the Los Angeles Times, CBC, NPR and others ^{[1] [4] [5]}. These accounts include examples of citizens who say they were held for hours or days, sometimes despite producing identification, and a small subset of cases led to dismissal of charges after release ^{[1] [6]}.

2. Government denials and caveats — DHS pushes back

The Department of Homeland Security and some senior officials have publicly denied that ICE is arresting or deporting U.S. citizens as part of targeted operations, saying enforcement is “highly targeted” and agents are trained to verify status; DHS statements have explicitly asserted that “ICE does not arrest or detain U.S.” citizens in enforcement sweeps, framing some media narratives as false ^[3]. DHS spokespeople have also said many reported detentions involve other reasons such as alleged obstruction or criminal behavior, and that some reportedly detained citizens were released after verification ^{[3] [7]}.

3. Legal and congressional pressure — lawmakers and courts respond

Members of Congress and civil‑rights groups have demanded investigations and legislative changes, asking DHS and ICE to produce data on how many U.S. citizens have been stopped, arrested, detained or placed in removal proceedings and pressing for accountability where cases appear to violate agency policy ^{[8] [9]}. Courts and the ACLU have also litigated instances where citizens say they were illegally detained, and at least one federal ruling found for a citizen improperly held after an ICE-related detainer ^[10].

4. Who appears most affected — patterns reporters highlight

Reporting and reviews emphasize that many alleged wrongful detentions involved Latinos or people “who look like” those agents sought, raising racial‑profiling concerns and prompting civil‑rights warnings that sweeps cast a wide net; local reporting collated by outlets such as Axios and The Guardian documents specific episodes involving Latino U.S. citizens held or questioned ^{[6] [11]}. Human Rights Watch and other advocates have framed episodes in Los Angeles and elsewhere as part of a broader, aggressive enforcement campaign with real harms to citizens as well as noncitizens ^{[12] [11]}.

5. Data gaps and record‑keeping limits — why exact counts are uncertain

A consistent theme across coverage is that the federal government does not publish a clear, authoritative count of U.S. citizens detained in immigration operations, and critics say ICE’s record‑keeping is incomplete; ProPublica and others stress that tallying such cases is “messy and incomplete” because DHS has not systematically tracked encounters where citizenship was later established ^{[1] [13]}. Congressional letters explicitly ask whether DHS even tracks these encounters, reflecting the persistent data gap ^{[8] [9]}.

6. Competing narratives — media investigations vs. official framing

Media investigations and civil‑rights groups say documented cases demonstrate a troubling pattern and quantify “more than 170” citizen detentions in 2025, citing video, lawsuits and court records ^{[1] [2]}" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[2]. The administration’s messaging counters that enforcement is targeted, that agents are trained to verify status, and that many reported incidents involve other law‑enforcement justifications — a direct disagreement on both scope and interpretation ^{[3] [7]}.

7. What this means for someone asking “how often”

Available reporting supports the conclusion that documented instances of U.S. citizens being detained by immigration agents increased and were widely reported in 2025, with investigative tallies exceeding 170 cases — but the exact frequency over “recent years” is not definitively quantified in government data and remains contested ^{[1] [13]}. For policymakers and researchers, the central problem is the absence of a reliable, public government count; journalists, advocates, and some lawmakers therefore call for mandatory tracking, transparency, and clearer safeguards ^{[8] [9]}.

Limitations: this analysis relies on investigative reporting, advocacy statements, litigation and DHS public responses contained in the provided sources; available sources do not provide a single, official aggregate number across multiple years beyond the 2025 investigative tallies referenced above ^{[1] [13]}.