How are the majority of ICE agents finding people to detain and deport?
Executive summary
The majority of ICE agents locate people to detain and deport through a mix of referrals and frontline encounters: Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) processes migrants apprehended at the border, cooperation with local and state police under programs like 287(g), and proactive street-level tactics that include consensual encounters and brief detentions when agents claim reasonable suspicion [1] [2] [3]. Complementing those methods are investigative channels—Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) fraud probes and interagency data and detention leads—that feed targeted operations and larger surges orchestrated by the agency [4] [1].
1. Border apprehensions funnel into deportation pipelines
A core source of people who enter ICE custody are migrants initially apprehended by Border Patrol and then transferred to ERO custody; ERO’s mandate explicitly includes receiving and detaining undocumented immigrants apprehended at border offices and ensuring their removal when ordered [1]. ICE statistics cited during recent enforcement surges show tens of thousands in detention—figures that reflect the steady inflow from border interdictions as well as other sources [5].
2. Local policing and task-force partnerships amplify ICE reach
ICE expands its reach through partnerships with state and local law enforcement under programs such as 287(g) and task-force models that authorize local officers to identify and process undocumented immigrants encountered during ordinary policing [1]. Those arrangements mean routine traffic stops, arrests for local offenses, and jail bookings can generate immigration enforcement leads that ICE or allied officers act upon [1].
3. Street-level tactics: consensual encounters, reasonable-suspicion detentions, and ruses
ICE agents operate in public spaces and are empowered, like other law enforcement, to initiate consensual encounters and to briefly detain people if they claim reasonable suspicion someone is illegally present, then to arrest if they believe the person is removable [2] [3]. Advocates and monitoring groups have also documented the use of “ruses” and phone tactics as ways ICE locates targets—tactics the Immigrant Defense Project has tracked for years [6].
4. Investigations, fraud detection, and intelligence-driven raids
Not all arrests are improvised street stops; HSI investigative work—such as identifying suspected fraud—feeds targeted enforcement that ERO officers execute, especially during large coordinated operations [4]. Reporting on recent surges notes that specialized HSI teams concentrate on complex investigative leads while deportation officers carry out arrests, indicating an intelligence-to-action pipeline inside DHS [4].
5. Large federal surges and political signaling change tactics and scale
When the administration mobilizes mass operations—described as the “largest” enforcement efforts in recent reporting—ICE and DHS place hundreds or thousands of federal agents in regions, combining investigators, tactical units and deportation officers to follow investigative leads and conduct arrests, a dynamic that increases street presence and produces more encounters [4] [7]. Critics say these surges also serve as political theater, a claim supported by reporting of film crews and senior officials embedded on operations [8].
6. Public-facing enforcement meets organized community resistance and scrutiny
As ICE operations have become more visible, activists and organizers have developed rapid-response playbooks—following agents, recording encounters and handing out legal-resource cards—to warn communities and complicate enforcement actions [9]. That resistance has provoked litigation and official pushback from state officials who describe federal tactics as aggressive and destabilizing, illustrating the contested terrain where ICE finds and attempts to detain people [10] [9].
7. What reporting does not conclusively show
Available documents and news coverage clearly identify the major channels—border apprehensions, local-law-enforcement referrals, street encounters, investigative leads and targeted HSI work—but the exact proportion attributable to each channel nationally is not established in the provided reporting, nor are comprehensive, public breakdowns of ICE’s operational sources included here [1] [5]. Where sources do provide statistics, they are often framed by DHS or tied to specific operations rather than offering a single, verified national mix [7] [5].