How many us citizens has ice detained in south carolina?
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Executive summary
Reporting shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested more than 3,000 people in South Carolina in 2025, a sharp increase from roughly 1,300 the year before [1][2]. None of the provided sources break down those arrests or detentions by U.S. citizenship, and ICE’s own mission language frames detention as civil custody of “aliens,” which suggests the publicly reported tallies primarily target noncitizens — but the exact count of U.S. citizens detained in South Carolina cannot be determined from the material provided [3].
1. The headline numbers: arrests surge, not citizenship tallies
Local reporting repeatedly emphasizes that ICE arrests in South Carolina have more than doubled this year — outlets cite “more than 3,000” arrests statewide in 2025 versus under 1,300 in 2024, with midyear tallies noting 1,755 arrests by July and monthly spikes that tripled earlier baselines [1][2][4][5]. Those stories and the data they rely on (processed via the Deportation Data Project) focus on counts of people arrested and characteristics such as criminal custody status, not a breakdown by U.S. citizenship [5][6].
2. What ICE’s public materials and reporting actually measure
ICE’s public materials describe its detention mission in terms of detaining “aliens” subject to immigration proceedings or removal and direct readers to the Online Detainee Locator System that uses an A-number — a unique identifier assigned to noncitizens — to find people in ICE custody [3][7][8]. The reporting cited here derives from datasets obtained and processed by the Deportation Data Project and media analysis, which report arrest and detention counts rather than enumerating detained U.S. citizens specifically [5][6].
3. Why the sources don’t answer “how many U.S. citizens” directly
None of the provided stories or datasets explicitly list U.S. citizenship status for people arrested or detained in South Carolina; they categorize people by arrest origin (community vs. jails), criminal custody or pending charges, and types of immigration violations, leaving a gap on nationality or citizenship fields in the published accounts [5][6]. The detainee locator and government guidance instruct searches by A-number or other identifiers used for noncitizens, which further indicates public systems and reporting are organized around immigration status rather than counting U.S. citizens mistakenly held [8][9].
4. Context that matters: local jails, 287(g) and the risk of miscategorization
Reporting and advocacy analyses flag how ICE’s expanded operations rely on local jails, contracts for bedspace, and an expansion of 287(g) deputization agreements that let local law enforcement assist immigration enforcement — mechanisms that increase the flow of people from criminal custody into ICE custody and complicate recordkeeping about who is being transferred [6][10][11]. Those institutional arrangements can create incidents of mistaken identity or paperwork errors in any large enforcement surge, but the sources presented do not enumerate any confirmed instances of U.S. citizens detained in South Carolina.
5. Bottom line and limits of available evidence
Based on the supplied reporting, ICE arrested more than 3,000 people in South Carolina in 2025 compared with roughly 1,300 in 2024 [1][2], and the agency’s public materials and linked datasets focus on noncitizen detainees and A-number-based tracking [3][8]. The exact number of U.S. citizens detained by ICE in South Carolina is not reported in these sources; therefore it cannot be stated from the provided material. Independent confirmation would require access to ICE/ERO arrest and intake records with citizenship fields, local sheriff/jail transfer logs, or case-level data from the Deportation Data Project that include nationality or citizenship markers — datasets not present in the reporting given [5][6].