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How many people were arrested in the U.S. in 2025 by month and state?
Executive summary
Comprehensive national data showing “how many people were arrested in the U.S. in 2025 by month and state” is not compiled in a single public dataset in the sources provided; instead reporting and government releases focus heavily on ICE and CBP immigration-related arrests and on partial, state-level journalistic reconstructions (not a full month-by-state arrest table) [1] [2] [3]. Official ICE semi‑monthly detention and “book‑in” releases give month-by-month ICE arrest counts by arresting agency and field office, but the federal government stopped publishing some comprehensive dashboards after January 2025 and watchdogs and newsrooms have had to piece together gaps [1] [3].
1. Federal arrest totals exist for specific agencies, not “all arrests by state/month”
The clearest, regularly published federal figures in 2025 concern Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enforcement metrics: ICE posts Enforcement and Removal Operations statistics including “Initial Book‑Ins by Arresting Agency and Month” that allow monthly tallies of ICE’s arrests (book‑ins) and can be broken out by ICE field office (Area of Responsibility) [1] [4]. CBP also publishes enforcement statistics focused on border apprehensions and certain arrests [5]. But none of the supplied sources shows a single, consolidated dataset of every U.S. arrest (all agencies, all charges) by month and by state for calendar year 2025 (available sources do not mention a single consolidated nationwide dataset).
2. Reporting has focused on immigration arrests because of large and sudden changes
Journalists and advocacy groups concentrated on 2025 immigration enforcement because ICE and DHS statistics showed abrupt surges that were newsworthy: The Guardian reported that more people were arrested by immigration enforcement in the first 22 days of February 2025 than in any month in the prior seven years, based on DHS data [2]. DHS and White House statements also highlighted months with roughly 20,000 ICE arrests and claimed big percentage rises; these were amplified in government releases and on political messaging [6] [7]. These agency-focused spikes explain why much of the 2025 arrest coverage is about immigration rather than every arrest type across all state and local law enforcement [2] [6].
3. There is disagreement about the scale and interpretation of ICE numbers
Independent analysts and watchdogs offered competing readings. DHS releases and White House messaging touted large monthly ICE arrest counts (for example, “more than 20,000” in a single month cited by DHS) [6]. By contrast, TRACE and others cautioned that semi‑monthly ICE reports and methodology limit straightforward comparisons and that early post‑inauguration changes in detainee totals do not necessarily prove sustained increases in arrests or removals [8]. Journalistic reconstructions (e.g., The Guardian) and academic groups attempted to fill gaps; each source uses the ICE/CBP tables differently and reaches different emphases [2] [4] [8].
4. State‑level and non‑immigration arrests are fragmented across many sources
State and local arrest data—typical arrests for violent crime, drug offenses, municipal warrants and other policing—are collected by local agencies and aggregated in different ways. The FBI’s historical arrest compilations (via Statista/FBI) cover nationwide totals through 2023 but do not provide the requested 2025 month-by-state breakdown in the supplied material [9]. Local outlets and public records (for example county jail logs and small newspapers) publish episodic arrest lists, but those are not standardized or complete for a national month-by-state time series (p2_s1–p2_s6). Therefore, constructing a full 2025 matrix of arrests by month and state would require combining many local, state and federal feeds beyond the scope of the current sources (available sources do not mention a ready-made national month/state arrest table for 2025).
5. Practical path to an answer and caveats
If you want a near-complete portrait for 2025 you have two realistic routes implied by the sources: (A) Use ICE and CBP official monthly tables for immigration‑related arrests (ICE’s Initial Book‑Ins by Arresting Agency and Month and CBP enforcement statistics) to produce a month-by‑month, field‑office or state‑mapped tally for federal immigration arrests [1] [5]; (B) assemble state and local arrest datasets (FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, state criminal justice dashboards, county jail logs and newsroom compilations) and reconcile them month‑by‑month — a large data‑engineering task that watchdogs and projects like Deportation Data Project and investigative newsrooms have been doing piecemeal [3] [4]. Be aware that federal immigration figures may change format or frequency and that some agencies reduced the detail they publish after January 2025, creating gaps that researchers must patch [3] [8].
6. Bottom line for your query
Available official and journalistic sources provide month-by‑month figures for specific federal agencies (ICE/CBP) and partial state reconstructions for immigration arrests in 2025, but they do not provide a single, authoritative month‑and‑state count of all arrests across U.S. law enforcement in 2025. To produce the exact table you asked for would require merging ICE/CBP monthly book‑in files with state and local arrest datasets and filling gaps with investigative compilations — work that reporters and research groups have been doing but is not bundled as a single public dataset in the sources provided [1] [2] [3] [8].