Fact check: How many US citizens have been wrongly detained by ICE since 2020?

1. Why official figures stop short: audits show data gaps and inconsistent reporting

A series of Government Accountability Office reviews and related analyses conclude that ICE’s public detention and citizenship-investigation data understates the true number of people affected, because internal tracking is fragmented and reporting methods vary over time. The GAO’s 2021 review quantified arrests, detentions, and removals involving potential U.S. citizens through mid-2020 but did not extend to a clear post-2020 national total, and the 2024 GAO work reiterated that ICE should strengthen data reporting to capture detentions more comprehensively ^{[1] [2] [3]}. These audits identify structural data limitations that explain the absence of an authoritative count since 2020.

2. Concrete numbers available only through 2015–mid‑2020, not beyond

The most precise figure in the provided records comes from the GAO’s July 2021 report, which found ICE had arrested 674, detained 121, and removed 70 potential U.S. citizens from fiscal year 2015 through the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, a period that ends before the post‑2020 window the question targets ^[1]. The GAO characterized these counts as involving individuals subject to investigations about citizenship status, highlighting both misclassification risk and the difficulty of distinguishing lawful detentions of noncitizens from wrongful detentions of citizens. No subsequent GAO figure in the provided analyses supplies a nationally aggregated post‑2020 total.

3. Watchdogs and researchers corroborate systemic problems, not a national tally

Independent trackers and researchers cite the same reporting weaknesses that block a clear answer. TRAC and other monitoring outlets observed ICE’s inconsistent reporting on detention metrics and Alternatives to Detention, noting that public counts likely understate total detentions and therefore obscure any reliable estimate of U.S. citizens wrongly detained since 2020 ^{[7] [2]}. Policy and advocacy reports about deaths and medical care in detention emphasize systemic failings that increase the likelihood of wrongful detentions but stop short of producing a comprehensive count of U.S. citizen cases ^[8].

4. Courts and lawsuits add concrete examples but not a sum total

Recent litigation through September 2025 supplies clear, documented instances where courts found unlawful detention or where advocacy groups sued over detention practices, underscoring that wrongful detention of U.S. citizens has continued into the 2020s. Examples include a September 2025 federal court ordering the release of a DACA recipient and ACLU lawsuits challenging sheriffs’ cooperation with ICE, which illustrate individual harms and systemic pathways to wrongful detention ^{[4] [5] [6]}. These cases prove the phenomenon persists, but court records and class actions do not yet aggregate into a national post‑2020 count.

5. Why counting is technically and legally difficult

Determining a reliable count requires consistent definitions, cross‑agency data matching, and agreement on what constitutes “wrongful detention” (e.g., arrested but later confirmed a citizen versus detained for extended periods). The GAO and monitoring groups flag recordkeeping gaps, inconsistent definitions, and underreporting in ICE’s public datasets, which mean researchers cannot accurately distinguish confirmed citizen detentions from cases where citizenship status was disputed or later corrected ^{[2] [3]}. These methodological barriers explain why post‑2020 totals are absent.

6. What the existing sources recommend to make a count possible

Across audits and watchdog recommendations, the principal remedy is better data: ICE should implement consistent internal tracking of citizenship investigations, publish transparent detention counts, and reconcile facility-level data with national reporting. The GAO’s 2024 report explicitly recommends ICE strengthen its data reporting to provide more complete counts of detained individuals, a change that would enable reliable post‑2020 tallies if implemented and audited ^{[2] [3]}. Without those reforms, public confidence in any aggregate number will remain limited.

7. What can be said today with confidence

Based on the available materials, it is a fact that some U.S. citizens have been wrongfully detained by ICE in the period spanning 2015 through at least 2025, documented through GAO audits, court rulings, and litigation ^{[1] [4] [5]}. What cannot be stated from these sources is a validated national count of such wrongful detentions since 2020, because the auditing and reporting frameworks have not produced a consistent, comprehensive dataset for that period ^[2].

8. Bottom line for researchers and policymakers seeking an answer

To produce a credible post‑2020 number, independent researchers will need access to reconciled ICE internal case files, standardized definitions of wrongful detention, and external audits verifying counts at facility and national levels. The sources collectively present a roadmap—better tracking, transparent public reporting, and judicial oversight—but until those steps are completed and data are released, the exact number of U.S. citizens wrongly detained by ICE since 2020 remains indeterminate in the reviewed materials ^{[1] [2] [7]}.