Detentions by ICE in 2025 and 2026 by state
Executive summary
U.S. immigration detention surged across 2025 into early 2026, with agency tallies showing roughly mid- to high‑60,000s in custody by late 2025 and early January 2026, but publicly available data do not provide a complete, up‑to‑date state-by-state ledger for all of 2025–2026 [1] [2] [3]. Independent trackers and local reporting fill some state gaps—Hawaiʻi, New Jersey, Texas and Florida surface repeatedly in reporting—but national trends, facility reopenings and data lags limit a definitive per‑state accounting from the sources reviewed [4] [5] [1] [6].
1. Nationwide picture: detention totals and trajectory
ICE detention levels climbed sharply through 2025; independent trackers reported about 65,735 people in ICE custody as of November 30, 2025 [1], mid‑November coverage placed the total above 65,000 and noted a 62 percent increase from January 2025 levels [7], and major outlets reported agency counts of roughly 68,440–68,990 held in mid‑December 2025 and early January 2026 [2] [3]. These multiple snapshots show a consistent upward trajectory but also reflect timing differences between ICE’s public dashboards and third‑party compilations [1] [8] [9].
2. State and local snapshots that reporting captures
Hawaiʻi experienced a pronounced spike in 2025: detainers from local jails and a rise in average daily population at the Federal Detention Center Honolulu – from 15 in January to 81 at the end of November – and 218 people booked into FDC Honolulu by mid‑October 2025 versus 130 in all of 2024 [4]. New Jersey reporting, relying on the Deportation Data Project, counted roughly 5,500 detentions from January to mid‑October 2025 in that state, though contract redactions blocked facility‑specific counts [5]. Texas, practically as a holding hub, showed extremely high facility counts: the El Paso “Camp East Montana” site averaged 2,774 detainees per day as of November 2025, underscoring Texas’ outsized role in housing ICE populations [1]. Florida has been notable both for expanded local enforcement under 287(g) and for deteriorating inspection findings at some facilities, signaling both higher detentions and concerns about conditions [6].
3. How and why state patterns vary—capacity, policy and local cooperation
State variation stems from where ICE can secure beds, from local law enforcement cooperation and from policy directives that increased mandatory detention in 2025; ICE reopened or added hundreds of facilities and expanded reliance on local jails and 287(g) agreements across some 40 states, shifting where detainees are held and inflating totals in jurisdictions that cooperate or house large contracted facilities [6] [10]. Independent analyses point out that ICE tripled the jail population in some places and that state‑level mandates—Florida’s 287(g) expansion is a prominent example—reshaped detention footprints [10] [6].
4. Who is held and what that implies about state counts
Reporting shows a large share of detainees lack criminal convictions—TRAC reported about 73.6 percent of those in custody through November 30, 2025 had no conviction, while other outlets estimated roughly a quarter to a third had convictions or pending charges, with the remainder civilly detained—meaning state counts are not strictly a measure of criminal‑justice detention but of federal immigration processing and policy choices [1] [11] [7]. That composition matters because jurisdictions without extensive local criminal processing may still host large numbers of federally detained immigrants transferred in from elsewhere [4] [1].
5. Limits of the available data and why a full state breakdown cannot be produced here
The sources include detailed local stories and datasets but stop short of a single, reconciled state‑by‑state table for all of 2025–early 2026: ICE’s public dashboards are updated quarterly and the Deportation Data Project’s release runs through mid‑October 2025, creating temporal gaps; contracts and ICE redactions also obscure facility counts in some states like New Jersey [8] [9] [5]. Multiple reporters and researchers underscore that transparency shortfalls and rapidly shifting detention placements—new or reopened facilities and transfers to hubs such as El Paso—make an authoritative, contemporaneous state‑by‑state tally impossible from the provided reporting alone [6] [1] [12].
6. Bottom line and what to watch next
The available reporting documents a nationwide surge in ICE detentions concentrated where capacity and local cooperation exist—Texas, Florida, Hawaiʻi and New Jersey are among the places singled out in reporting—and national custody counts reached roughly 65,000–69,000 by late 2025 and early January 2026, but a complete, validated state‑by‑state breakdown is not present in the sources reviewed and would require ICE’s full, up‑to‑date release or consolidated datasets from projects like TRAC, the Deportation Data Project or Vera to map precisely [1] [2] [4] [5] [10]. Watch for ICE quarterly dashboard updates, further Deportation Data Project releases, and state‑level FOIA‑based reporting to fill the remaining gaps [8] [9].