How many ICE agents are officially assigned to each state and do DHS/ICE publish that breakdown?
Executive summary
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) report a dramatic expansion of ICE’s workforce — from roughly 10,000 officers and agents to more than 22,000 after a large 2025–2026 recruitment push [1] [2] — and they say thousands of those hires have been deployed nationwide [1] [3]. None of the reporting provided produces an official, public, state-by-state tally of how many ICE agents are assigned to each state; the available sources describe nationwide numbers and deployments but do not publish a per-state breakdown in the material supplied here [1] [2] [3].
1. What DHS and ICE have publicly announced about total staffing
DHS and ICE have publicly celebrated a hiring surge that doubled ICE’s count of officers and agents — an increase the department describes as exceeding its target by adding more than 12,000 personnel and bringing the total to roughly 22,000 officers and agents [1] [2] — and multiple outlets have repeated that figure in recent coverage [3] [4]. That aggregate number is consistently reported across DHS statements and contemporaneous reporting, which frames the change as a nationwide replenishment and rapid expansion of the agency’s operational capacity [1] [2].
2. What reporting says about geographic deployment versus formal assignments
Reporting emphasizes that "thousands" of newly hired ICE officers have been deployed across the country and into specific city operations, with journalists and analysts noting increased ICE presence in Democratic-leaning cities and major metropolitan areas [1] [5] [4]. But the language in the sources stresses deployments and operations rather than publishing granular, permanent assignment rosters by state; statements speak to nationwide placement and field deployments, not to a published ledger of state assignments [1] [3].
3. No source here shows a public, state-by-state roster from DHS or ICE
Among the documents and articles provided, none contains a state-by-state official breakdown of ICE officer or agent assignments; the publicly quoted figures are agency-wide totals and descriptions of deployment activity [1] [2] [3]. Given the absence of a per-state roster in these sources, it cannot be stated from this reporting that DHS or ICE have published an official map or table enumerating agents assigned to each state [1] [2].
4. Context and competing claims that matter to readers
Observers and civil‑rights groups have raised alarm about deployments and tactics as ICE presence expanded, citing deaths in custody and clashes during field operations, and states and localities have responded with lawsuits and new legislation seeking to regulate or expose federal deployments [6] [7] [8]. News coverage also highlights operational changes underpinning rapid deployment — for example, shortened training timelines that allowed faster fielding of personnel — underscoring that observed increases in local activity may reflect temporary or mission-driven deployments rather than fixed, state-assigned headcounts [2].
5. What this reporting implies about how to get a state breakdown (and its limits)
Because the supplied material provides only agency-wide totals and deployment descriptions, researchers seeking a formal state-by-state allocation would likely need to consult DHS or ICE primary publications beyond the articles here, or file records requests for staffing assignments; the reporting does not document such an official breakdown and therefore cannot confirm whether one has been published elsewhere [1] [2]. At the same time, multiple outlets and watchdogs are tracking ICE’s geographic activity and impacts, so local reporting often offers the clearest picture of where agents are operating even if a centralized, official per-state roster is not publicly supplied in these sources [5] [4] [9].