What proportion of ICE arrests between 2019–2024 involved U.S. citizens vs. noncitizens?
Executive summary
ICE’s public data show that most interior enforcement arrests target noncitizens, with ERO reporting administrative arrests only for noncitizens while HSI criminal arrests can include U.S. citizens; ICE recorded 149,070 total arrests in FY2024 across ERO administrative, ERO criminal, and HSI criminal categories (113,430 administrative by ERO, 3,032 ERO criminal, 32,608 HSI) and notes administrative arrests are of noncitizens [1]. Independent analysts and GAO stress reporting gaps and shifting priorities from interior to border enforcement, making a simple citizen vs. noncitizen proportion across 2019–2024 incomplete in public releases [2] [3].
1. What ICE counts as an “arrest” and who is covered
ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) administrative arrests are explicitly of noncitizens (aliens) for immigration violations; those administrative arrests therefore do not include U.S. citizens [1]. By contrast, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) criminal arrests target transnational crime and can include both citizens and noncitizens, so aggregate “ICE arrests” mix categories that are not directly comparable without disaggregation [1] [4].
2. The headline numbers for recent years — context and 2024 snapshot
ICE reports for FY2024 show 149,070 total arrests split into 113,430 ERO administrative arrests (76.1% of the FY2024 total), 3,032 ERO criminal arrests and 32,608 HSI arrests [1]. Because ERO administrative arrests are by definition noncitizens, at least the 113,430 administrative arrests were noncitizens; HSI’s 32,608 arrests include citizens and noncitizens but ICE does not present a simple citizen/noncitizen breakdown of those HSI arrests in the cited summary [1] [4].
3. Why you can’t produce a neat 2019–2024 citizen/noncitizen percentage from the public reports
ICE’s public dashboards and annual reports separate administrative (noncitizen) enforcement from criminal components and do not publish a consolidated, year-by-year citizen vs. noncitizen proportion across all arrest types for 2019–2024 in the materials provided here. GAO flagged weaknesses in ICE’s public reporting and noted understating of detained totals and reporting variation over time; independent explainers likewise stress the agency’s shift in enforcement focus and different data definitions, which complicate cross‑year aggregation [2] [3].
4. What the independent analysts add — distribution of interior vs. border work
Migration Policy Institute and other analysts emphasize that interior arrests have fallen as ICE resources shifted toward border-related removals; they note, for example, that “at-large” interior arrests comprised just 29% of arrests in FY2024 — illustrating that many enforcement actions relate to different operational streams and that interior (ERO) figures disproportionately represent noncitizens in removal processes [5] [3].
5. The limits of headline comparisons and what is findable in the sources
Available sources show clear counts for ERO administrative arrests (noncitizens) and totals for HSI criminal arrests, but they do not provide a single, validated table that sums every ICE arrest 2019–2024 by citizenship status across all components in the cited documents. Data projects and FOIA-derived datasets exist (e.g., Deportation Data Project, TRAC) and may permit more granular reconstruction, but the specific consolidated citizen vs. noncitizen percentages for 2019–2024 are not presented in the sources supplied here [6] [7].
6. Competing interpretations and implicit agendas
ICE frames its activity as prioritizing noncitizens with criminal convictions — a framing that emphasizes public‑safety rationales for interior arrests [8] [4]. Independent researchers and GAO highlight reporting gaps and changing priorities (border vs. interior), which can make agency claims about who is being arrested and why difficult to verify from summary releases alone [2] [3]. Advocacy groups and some media trackers compile FOIA or scraped datasets to challenge or refine ICE narratives; those efforts aim to fill reporting gaps but rely on different methods and assumptions [6] [9].
7. How to get the precise proportion you asked for
To produce a precise citizen vs. noncitizen proportion for 2019–2024, one must (a) extract year-by-year ERO administrative arrests (noncitizens) from ICE monthly/annual tables, (b) obtain HSI arrest records broken down by citizenship (if available), and (c) reconcile definitions across fiscal vs. calendar years and administrative vs. criminal categories. The sources here provide the administrative totals and overall FY2024 splits but do not include the complete, consolidated citizenship breakdown across 2019–2024 required to compute a single proportion [1] [4] [5].
Limitations: This article relies only on the documents supplied; the exact consolidated citizen vs. noncitizen share for 2019–2024 is not published in these sources and therefore cannot be reported here without additional ICE or FOIA data releases (not found in current reporting) [2] [6].