What percentage of ICE arrests nationwide come from transfers from local jails and state prisons, and how does Minnesota compare?

1. The national picture: transfers from jails and prisons account for roughly half of ICE’s arrests

Recent analyses of federal arrest records show that approximately half of ICE arrests nationwide involve people who were transferred from other criminal custody settings—local jails, state prisons, or federal lockups—rather than being arrested on the street or at workplaces ^[1]. Independent trackers and research projects that compile ICE releases and FOIA-derived datasets document the heavy operational role those custodial pathways play in ICE’s enforcement pipeline, with entire data products focused on mapping arrests that originate in “lock‑ups” and other detention settings ^{[2] [3]}.

2. Why the accounting is messy: ICE changed how it reports custodial arrests

A crucial complication is that ICE changed its public coding and stopped distinguishing several Criminal Alien Program pathways in mid‑2025, lumping prior distinctions into a broader “custodial arrests” category; that change makes breakdowns by local jail versus state or federal prison less reliable after July 2025 ^[4]. Prison Policy’s analysis highlights that some cases originally coded as state or federal CAP arrests actually occurred at local jails after transfers, and the agency’s reporting shift has reduced transparency about where arrests physically took place ^[4].

3. Minnesota compared: lower share of custodial handovers but still material

The New York Times’ state‑by‑state analysis of federal data found that about 30 percent of people ICE detained in Minnesota in the referenced year were turned over by local jails and prisons, a share substantially below the national midpoint and lower than in 39 other states ^[1]. That places Minnesota among states where ICE relied more on non‑custodial arrests—street, workplace, or other locations—relative to the many states where jail/prison transfers constitute a majority of interior arrests ^[1].

4. What the numbers mean—and who benefits from which narrative

Framing ICE’s interior enforcement as driven by custodial transfers highlights the power of state and local facilities to facilitate or curtail deportations, a point emphasized by advocates and analysts who track the “criminal alien” pipeline ^{[4] [2]}. Conversely, emphasizing large numbers of street arrests can support federal messaging about proactive interior enforcement; both narratives have political utility as administrations and state leaders spar over cooperation ^[1]. Independent trackers such as TRAC and the Deportation Data Project supply raw counts but analysts warn that shifts in ICE’s reporting practice complicate comparisons over time ^{[3] [2] [4]}.

5. Contextual data and limits: convictions, timing, and data coverage

Additional context matters: several monitors report that a growing portion of people ICE detained in late 2025 and early 2026 had no U.S. criminal conviction, underscoring that custodial origin does not map neatly onto criminal history ^{[5] [6] [7]}. The datasets underlying these proportions cover different windows—some FOIA‑based releases run through mid‑October 2025 and some trackers extend into late 2025—so point estimates can vary depending on the exact period and ICE’s post‑July 2025 reporting aggregation ^{[2] [4]}. Where source material does not provide finer separations between local, state, and federal custodial origins after the reporting change, this analysis refrains from asserting distinctions the data no longer supports ^[4].

6. Bottom line

Available federal and independent analyses converge on a simple, defensible comparison: nationally, about half of ICE’s interior arrests came via transfers from other custody settings in the period analyzed, while Minnesota’s share was roughly 30 percent—lower than most states—though that comparison is complicated by ICE’s mid‑2025 reporting changes and differences in the time windows of public datasets ^{[1] [4] [2]}.