How many ICE arrests occurred in 2025 compared with 2024 and 2023?
Executive summary
ICE reported 277,686 arrests for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, an average of about 310 arrests per day according to ICE-published figures cited by Newsweek [1]. Independent trackers and news analyses show a marked surge in 2025 interior arrests compared with 2024 — for example, national-level reporting and FOIA-derived datasets show roughly 112,000 ICE arrests from Jan. 20–late June 2025 versus nearly 51,000 for the same period in 2024 [2] [3]. State and local analyses document even larger proportional increases in many jurisdictions [4] [5].
1. National picture: FY 2024 baseline and the 2025 surge
ICE’s published dashboards for data through Dec. 31, 2024 provide the official baseline: Newsweek summarizes that FY 2024 (Oct. 2023–Sep. 2024) included 277,686 arrests, an average of about 310 arrests per day [1]. Independent and FOIA-based analyses for 2025 show a sharper enforcement tempo after the Jan. 20, 2025 change in administration: one count reports nearly 112,000 arrests from Jan. 20 through late June 2025 compared with roughly 51,000 arrests over the same calendar window in 2024 [2]. The Guardian’s analysis of FOIA data similarly documents dramatic month-to-month spikes — for example, arrests in early June 2025 peaked near 1,000 a day and were 268% higher than June 2024 [3].
2. Methodology matters: official dashboards vs. FOIA and tracker datasets
ICE’s own dashboards (published May 30, 2025) represent the agency’s official counts through 2024 but the agency does not publish daily arrest figures in real time, which complicates short‑term comparisons [6]. Researchers and newsrooms have relied on FOIA releases and the Deportation Data Project to reconstruct day-by-day arrest tallies; those datasets drive much of the reporting about 2025 increases [3] [7]. TRAC and other analysts caution that ICE reporting practices and coverage have varied over time and that GAO has urged ICE to strengthen data reporting — a data-quality caveat that affects cross-year comparisons [8].
3. Scale and timing: comparing whole years vs. segments
Comparisons differ by the period measured. For full FY 2024, ICE’s reported 277,686 arrests (Newsweek summary) gives a clear annual baseline [1]. But much of the 2025 reporting compares discrete intervals — e.g., Jan. 20–late June 2025 versus the same dates in 2024 — and finds arrests more than doubled in that window [2]. Local analyses echo that pattern: New York City arrests in the first six months of the Trump administration eclipsed all of 2024 citywide totals, and states such as Connecticut more than doubled arrests in Jan–July 2025 versus the same months in 2024 [9] [5].
4. Who’s being arrested: criminal-justice mix shifted
Reporting indicates the composition of arrests changed in 2025. Stateline reports that convicted criminals made up about 40% of nearly 112,000 arrests from Jan. 20–late June 2025, down from 53% of roughly 51,000 arrests in the same period in 2024, suggesting a broader net in 2025 that pulled in more non‑convicted individuals [2].
5. Geographic variation: red and blue states diverge
Analyses find state-level variation is substantial. UCLA’s brief finds states with stronger 2024 Trump support and larger shares of Latino noncitizens experienced significantly higher arrest rates in early 2025 [4]. Local investigations confirm large proportional increases in many jurisdictions — Connecticut’s arrests more than doubled Jan–July 2025 vs. 2024, and Maryland saw a jump from an average 3.7 arrests/day in 2024 to about 9.8/day in 2025 [5] [10].
6. Disagreement among analysts and limits of the record
Not all analysts read the figures identically. TRAC’s analysis argues there is “little evidence” that arrests and removals through January 2025 exceeded the Biden administration’s FY 2024 pace when viewed over longer timeframes; TRAC also highlights ICE’s inconsistent publication of daily numbers and notes that the Trump administration discontinued publishing daily numbers after arrests fell in February 2025 [8]. That critique underscores a core limitation: different time windows, data sources (ICE dashboards vs. FOIA datasets), and reporting lags produce divergent impressions.
7. What’s missing or uncertain in current reporting
Available sources do not mention a single, reconciled official ICE daily arrest series for all of 2025 comparable to the FY 2024 dashboards; researchers instead rely on FOIA releases and independent compilations to measure 2025 activity [6] [7]. Precise totals for full calendar-year 2025 are not present in these sources; many reports focus on early‑2025 windows or local case studies [3] [2] [9].
Conclusion
Counting methodologies and the period chosen drive whether 2025 looks like a modest uptick or a sharp surge. ICE’s 2024 official baseline is clear (277,686 arrests in FY 2024) [1]; FOIA‑based tracking and multiple local analyses show substantially higher interior-arrest activity in many places in early–mid 2025 versus comparable 2024 periods [3] [2] [5]. Data-quality caveats from TRAC and GAO recommendations caution against reading short-term spikes as an unambiguous, fully audited trend [8] [6].