Which ICE field offices saw the biggest year‑over‑year increases in at‑large 'community' arrests in 2025, and what local policies correlated with those changes?
Executive summary
A clear pattern emerges in 2025 reporting: the largest year‑over‑year surges in at‑large “community” arrests clustered in states and regions served by ICE field offices covering New Mexico, Oregon (including Portland/Eugene areas), Virginia, Idaho and the District of Columbia, with striking local spikes in Hawaiʻi and Colorado; however, the available reporting mostly provides state‑ or region‑level totals rather than a clean, field‑office by field‑office ranking, so precise office‑level ordering cannot be reconstructed from the sources provided [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Which offices saw the biggest increases — what the public data actually shows
Independent compilations and local reporting identify the largest year‑over‑year increases at the state/region level: New Mexico reported more than 1,800 ICE arrests through mid‑October 2025 — over 12 times the prior year and described as “among the nation’s highest” increases alongside Virginia, Oregon, Idaho and D.C. by Stateline and local outlets [1]. Oregon reporting documents an approximately tenfold jump from 113 arrests in all of 2024 to at least 1,100 in 2025 and flags concentrated activity in Portland, Salem, Forest Grove and the Eugene/Lane County area, implicating the Portland area office and its subregions [2] [5]. Colorado’s Deportation Data Project tally shows arrests skyrocketing from 734 (Jan 1–Oct 15, 2024) to 3,230 over the same period in 2025, including many logged in “FRD General Area” — a field‑office proximate classification [3]. Hawaiʻi reporting shows ICE arrests through October 2025 quadrupling 2024 totals and a concentration of detainers coming from the Honolulu Police Department and Oʻahu Community Correctional Facility, pointing to a large increase tied to the Honolulu area office [4]. These state and local articles are the best available proxies for field‑office impacts in the public record cited here [1] [2] [3] [4].
2. What local policies and conditions correlated with those increases
Two broad correlations recur across the reporting: first, jurisdictions with laws or politics limiting local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement appear to have experienced intensified ICE interior arrests, a dynamic analysts say reflects federal attempts to bypass non‑cooperation by ramping up community arrests and using ICE offices, courthouses and local jails as enforcement nodes [6] [4] [2]. Oregon’s sanctuary protections and legal limits on local enforcement drew repeated federal focus and an administration vow to “come after” states like Oregon, and localities responded with emergency declarations and training — a policy tug‑of‑war that coincided with surge reporting [2]. Second, federal policy changes and resource shifts — historic budget increases, hiring waves, expanded expedited removal and broader 287(g) partnerships — materially expanded ICE’s operational capacity and appeared temporally linked to more community arrests across many field offices [7] [8]. Analysts tracking ICE jails and arrest averages note administration pressure on ICE to escalate community raids in 2025, which aligns with the mid‑year spikes reported in multiple states [6].
3. Alternative narratives, official framing and underlying incentives
DHS and ICE officials frame the spike as a targeting of people with criminal convictions or pending charges — with DHS citing that roughly 70% of those arrested had a conviction or charges — an explanation that supports the agency’s public safety justification [8]. Local advocates and civil‑liberties trackers counter that detention growth and arrests were disproportionately driven by people with no criminal convictions and by use of detention and surveillance tools, and that federal strategies exploited local jails and nontransparent detention pathways [9] [10]. Hidden incentives are evident in the reporting: a historic infusion of funds, hiring targets and political pressure to meet arrest quotas likely encouraged field offices to prioritize volume and use expanded authorities, while state noncooperation paradoxically concentrates enforcement activity where federal agencies can most readily operate [7] [6].
4. Limits of the record and what remains uncertain
The sources reliably identify the states and regions with the steepest year‑over‑year increases, but they do not provide a single authoritative table that maps every ICE field office to a ranked percentage or numeric increase in at‑large community arrests; most available datasets and local stories aggregate to state or FRD (field office region) categories, so any attempt to produce a definitive office‑by‑office leaderboard would exceed what these reports explicitly document [3] [1] [2].