Which US states and localities have the highest numbers of ICE arrests and removals recently?
Executive summary
Federal dashboards and independent trackers show that the largest absolute volumes of ICE interior arrests in recent months have clustered in the nation’s biggest population and immigration hubs — notably Texas, Florida and California — while smaller states and localities such as Hawaiʻi and Utah have seen sharp recent spikes in arrests or removals on a per-capita or year‑over‑year basis; however, uneven public data releases and known gaps in ICE reporting complicate firm, apples‑to‑apples rankings [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. National totals and the official record: what ICE reports
ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) public dashboards provide the principal federal accounting for arrests, detentions and removals through December 31, 2024, and are the baseline for tallying where enforcement activity is taking place, but ICE cautions users that data can change until fiscal‑year “lock” and that some data tables have known limitations [1].
2. States with the highest absolute numbers: Texas, Florida and California lead
Multiple compiled maps and reporting using ICE arrest records identify Texas, Florida and California as the states with the highest numbers of ICE arrests in the first half of 2025, reflecting both large populations and intensive enforcement operations in those states [2].
3. Detention geography and hubs: Texas as the largest detention host and local spikes
Independent trackers and reporting show ICE has relied heavily on Texas detention capacity, with Texas facilities housing the most people during FY2026 according to tracReports’ aggregation of facility data [6]. At the same time, local reporting documents stark localized jumps: Hawaiʻi experienced a sharp year‑over‑year rise in arrests and detentions in 2025 — arrests and removals through October reportedly quadrupled relative to 2024 and removals through mid‑October suggested a sizable annual increase — underscoring how a relative spike in a small state can be large in percentage terms even if absolute numbers remain lower than in big states [3] [7]. Utah has also seen a pronounced increase in ICE arrests under the current administration, more than doubling compared with 2024 according to state‑level analysis [4].
4. Removals: aggregate counts and recent totals
ICE and independent monitors report substantial numbers removed in recent fiscal years but not at the scale sometimes claimed in political rhetoric; tracReports noted ICE reported 56,392 removals so far in FY2026 and, combined with FY2025 figures, the Trump administration’s reported removals through those periods total roughly 290,603 — only a modest increase from 2024 when measured against the administration’s stated targets [5]. The Guardian’s analysis and ICE’s own removals tables are commonly used to attribute deportation totals to states or arresting agencies, but those tables require careful reading because removals are the downstream result of arrests, detentions, litigation and international repatriation arrangements [8] [1].
5. Who is being arrested: narratives, targets and contested claims
Federal statements and some DHS releases emphasize arrests of “the worst of the worst” with criminal convictions, but multiple independent analyses find that an increasing share of ICE’s interior arrests are of people with no recent criminal convictions and that the share of arrested individuals with violent‑crime convictions has fallen in 2025 compared with earlier periods [9] [10]. This divergence between official messaging and tabulations of arrest profiles highlights competing agendas: DHS and ICE highlight public‑safety rationales [9], while watchdogs stress expansion of immigration‑only arrests and argue state and local policies can blunt mass enforcement [11] [10].
6. Data caveats, duplications and where more transparency is needed
Researchers who assemble ICE records warn of duplicated arrest rows, missing linked removal tables in some FOIA releases and jurisdictional ambiguities (for example, Washington, D.C. sometimes merged with Virginia in state‑level tallies), all of which complicate precise rankings of localities by arrests or removals; the Deportation Data Project and ICE’s own cautions about changing datasets are explicit about these limitations [12] [11] [1].
7. Bottom line
On absolute counts, Texas, Florida and California have had the highest numbers of recent ICE interior arrests and related detention usage, while smaller states such as Hawaiʻi and Utah have registered notable recent spikes in arrests or removals on a per‑period basis; removals totals reported by ICE are substantial but fall short of some political claims, and data gaps and methodological choices mean any list of “top localities” should be treated as provisional and sensitive to future data reconciliation [2] [6] [3] [4] [5] [1].