What percentage if people arrested by ICE actually get a hearing? They are legally entitled to one unless they have a removal order.
Executive summary
There is no single, reliable percentage in the reviewed reporting that answers “what share of people arrested by ICE actually get an immigration hearing”; the available sources document that people detained by ICE are legally entitled to removal hearings but also describe growing use of expedited processes, courthouse arrests, and policies that accelerate deportation and limit bond hearings, which together make it impossible to compute a clear national percentage from these reports alone [1] [2] [3].
1. What the question actually asks and why it matters
The user asks for a concrete proportion of people arrested by ICE who receive an immigration hearing, an inquiry that requires linked data on arrests, detention status, charging pathways (detained docket versus non-detained), expedited removals, and final dispositions; none of the provided materials contains the comprehensive, cross‑tabulated dataset needed to calculate that single percentage, so any firm numeric answer would overreach the reporting [1] [4].
2. The legal baseline: hearings are the statutory norm
Under immigration law, people placed in removal proceedings are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge where eligibility for relief can be adjudicated; government materials and court practice confirm that hearings are the standard procedural mechanism for determining removal versus relief, although the precise mechanics (detained docket timing, bond hearings, appeals) vary by case and policy [1] [5].
3. How policy and tactics complicate access to hearings in practice
Recent reporting and advocacy materials document tactics—courthouse arrests, motions to dismiss that precede immediate detentions, and accelerated removal pathways—that interrupt or truncate the ordinary course of hearings: advocates have sued over arrests at immigration court that resulted in detention and rapid deportation, and observers describe motions-to-dismiss and expedited processes that shift cases into faster detained dockets [2] [6] [5].
4. What the numbers available tell us — and what they do not
Datasets cited in the reporting illuminate scale but not the specific hearing rate: TRAC and independent trackers show detention counts (about 65,735 in ICE detention as of late November 2025, with roughly 48,377 having no criminal conviction) but these figures do not state how many of those individuals completed a full removal hearing versus were subject to expedited removal, deported from custody, or otherwise processed without a conventional adjudication [7]. Advocacy reports add that by November 2025 more than fourteen people were deported from custody for every person released, which signals high in‑custody deportation rates but still does not translate into a precise percentage of hearings held [3].
5. Regional and situational variation — why a single national percentage is misleading
The sources show sharp local differences: courthouse arrests have concentrated media attention in places like New York and Boston, and ICE’s use of particular detention facilities and tactics varies across field offices, meaning hearing access can differ widely by jurisdiction, court, and whether defendants are detained or on the non‑detained docket [6] [8] [7]. The DHS/ICE public messaging emphasizing criminal arrests further contrasts with trackers showing a large share of detainees have no criminal convictions, revealing competing narratives and implicit agendas between enforcement officials and advocacy groups [9] [7] [3].
6. Direct answer based on the reviewed reporting
The reviewed sources do not provide a verifiable national percentage of people arrested by ICE who actually receive an immigration hearing; reporting documents both the legal entitlement to hearings and multiple practices that reduce or accelerate adjudication (courthouse arrests, expedited removal, detained docket processing), but they stop short of supplying the comprehensive dataset required to compute that proportion [1] [2] [6] [3]. Any precise figure would therefore require additional ICE or court disposition data not present in these materials [4].