Where can researchers find state-level ICE staffing and deployment records to compute agents per capita since 2020?
Executive summary
Researchers seeking state-level ICE staffing and deployment records since 2020 should start with ICE’s own public files—the Staffing Charts page, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) statistics, and annual reports—and then triangulate those official data with third‑party compilations (like the Deportation Data Project and TRAC) and targeted FOIA/state records requests where the public record is thin or inconsistent [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Official releases provide national and some field‑office level counts, DHS press statements document large hiring surges and claimed deployments, but independent projects and legal records are essential to convert published counts into agents‑per‑capita by state because ICE does not consistently publish granular, state‑level assignment rosters in a single, machine‑readable dataset [6] [7] [8].
1. Where the official numbers live: ICE websites and annual reports
ICE publishes staffing charts, an annual report and ERO statistics that are the authoritative starting points for headcounts and program descriptions; the ICE Staffing Charts page and the ICE statistics/ERO pages provide staff totals, program descriptions and selected operational notes researchers can download or cite [1] [2] [3]. ICE annual reports include “Current Staff Onboard” figures and ERO staffing discussion that can be parsed for trends and field‑office breakdowns in some fiscal years [8] [9].
2. National totals and claims about deployments — use DHS releases with caution
DHS and ICE press releases and statements have recently claimed large hiring and deployment numbers—DHS announced a roughly 120% manpower increase and “more than 12,000” new hires, and ICE/DHS spokespeople have said thousands are “on the ground nationwide” [6] [7]. Those statements are useful for measuring change but do not replace field‑level assignment lists and frequently omit how many hires are enforcement versus investigative or simply in training [7] [10].
3. Independent data projects that compile ICE outputs
Third‑party compendia are crucial to converting ICE outputs into state‑level per‑capita metrics: the Deportation Data Project hosts ICE enforcement actions data extracted from ICE records and notes the most recent releases extend through October 2025, allowing researchers to match enforcement intensity to staffing changes [4]. Syracuse University’s TRAC immigration project aggregates government data and has been cited for detention and arrest tallies that can be paired with staffing numbers [5].
4. Gaps and limits in the public record — why FOIA and state records matter
ICE’s public materials frequently provide national and sometimes field office figures but do not publish a consistent, centralized dataset of “agents assigned by state per month” since 2020; where the record is silent or aggregated, Freedom of Information Act requests to ICE and DHS or state open‑records requests to local jails and coordinating agencies are necessary to obtain deployment rosters, shift reports or memoranda of agreement for 287(g) or co‑operative operations (the sources show field deployments and surges but not a single public roster) [8] [1] [11]. Local reporting documenting city/region deployments—such as Minneapolis reporting that thousands of officers were sent to boost arrests—can corroborate and timestamp surges but must be paired with official logs for precise per‑capita calculations [12].
5. A practical workflow to compute agents per capita by state
Begin by downloading ICE Staffing Charts, annual reports and ERO statistics to assemble official onboard totals by year [1] [3] [2], then pull enforcement action counts from the Deportation Data Project and TRAC to allocate activity by state [4] [5]. Use DHS/ICE press releases to identify major hiring events and potential inflection points [6] [7], submit targeted FOIA/state records requests for staffing by field office and dates where gaps appear, and corroborate with local news and court filings that document temporary surge deployments or cross‑jurisdictional tasking [12] [13]. Finally, divide the best available state‑level agent counts by census population figures to produce agents per capita, and annotate every state estimate with source type (official release, FOIA production, third‑party compilation or local reporting) to make uncertainty transparent.
6. Caveats and competing narratives researchers must report
Official numbers can understate or obscure distributional detail, DHS/ICE public statements may overgeneralize deployment reach, and independent projects rely on ICE’s own releases and FOIA returns—meaning disagreements often reflect differences in granularity, timing and classification of personnel (enforcement vs investigative) rather than outright contradiction [7] [6] [4]. Where the sources reviewed do not publish a specific state roster or monthly assignment list since 2020, researchers should avoid asserting nonexistent precision and instead document the provenance and limits of each component of their agents‑per‑capita estimates [8] [1].