What were ICE's total apprehensions and referrals each year from 2017 to 2025?
Executive summary
A precise year‑by‑year table of ICE’s total apprehensions and referrals for 2017–2025 is not reproducible from the provided reporting alone; the authoritative monthly and annual operational datasets exist at DHS/OHSS and ICE but the excerpts supplied here contain summary trends and selected figures rather than the complete annual line‑items requested [1] [2]. Available public analyses show a sharp fall in ICE removals after 2016 and large variation in enforcement activity through 2024–25 — but assembling exact annual totals requires pulling the OHSS monthly tables or ICE ERO statistics for each fiscal year [3] [1].
1. What the question requires and where the raw counts live
The user seeks two discrete annual counts for each year 2017–2025 — (A) ICE apprehensions (administrative arrests/apprehensions attributed to ICE/ERO) and (B) ICE referrals (to criminal prosecution or to DHS/ICE removal actions) — and those operational totals are published in DHS’s centralized monthly tables (OHSS Persist dataset) and ICE’s ERO statistics pages and annual reports; the OHSS monthly tables explicitly contain encounters, arrests, book‑ins and referrals and are updated monthly as the statistical system of record [1] [2].
2. What the reviewed reporting actually shows: trends and sampled figures
Analysts have documented a downward trend in ICE’s interior removals and a divergence between DHS components: removals attributed to ICE dropped from earlier‑period averages (155,000 in FY2009–16) to much lower levels in later years, with Migration Policy Institute reporting ICE‑attributable removals averaging about 146,000 annually when DHS removals averaged 352,000 in FY2020–24 — and noting ICE removals from the interior fell to roughly 38,000 in FY2021–24 in one MPI framing of recent years [3] [4]. Public reporting from 2024–25 highlights rapid operational expansion and spikes in some months — for example ICE reported nearly 28,887 arrests in May 2025 in a TRAC summary comparing agency activity, while Border Patrol reported different volumes for border apprehensions [5] [6]. ICE’s own FY2024 annual report and the ICE statistics portal publish operational counts and describe programmatic changes going into FY2025 [7] [2].
3. Why the exact 2017–2025 annual totals cannot be stated confidently here
The source excerpts provided do not include a consolidated table of ICE’s annual apprehensions and referrals for each fiscal year from 2017 through 2025; instead they point to where those line‑item counts are recorded (OHSS monthly tables and ICE ERO statistics) and give sampled aggregate metrics and trend summaries [1] [2] [3]. Because the instruction requires citing every factual assertion inline to the supplied snippets, producing a year‑by‑year numeric list without those direct table extracts would violate the constraint of not asserting facts not covered in the provided sources.
4. How to obtain and verify the exact year‑by‑year numbers
To compile the requested annual counts, extract the “Arrests/Administrative Apprehensions by Arresting Agency” and “Referrals” fields from the DHS OHSS monthly tables (the OHSS Persist dataset) for fiscal years 2017–2025 and cross‑check with ICE’s ERO statistics pages and the ICE annual reports (OHSS and ICE are cited as the statistical system of record and the agency’s own statistics portal, respectively) [1] [2] [7]. For prosecution referrals specifically, TRAC, DOJ docket counts and ICE criminal referral tallies provide supplementary confirmation for particular months and years where prosecution referral rates spiked [5].
5. Interpreting totals once compiled: traps and context
Any year‑to‑year comparison must account for differing definitions, fiscal vs calendar year reporting, the split of removals handled by CBP versus ICE (DHS totals vs ICE‑attributable totals), and operational anomalies such as short‑term surges or policy shifts in 2024–25; analysts have cautioned that DHS removals are a composite of CBP and ICE actions and that headline deportation counts mask those internal splits [3] [4]. Where possible, obtain the OHSS table notes and ICE sourcing notes to understand whether a given “apprehension” is an ICE interior arrest, a border hand‑off, or a re‑arrest after release — those distinctions materially change how “apprehensions” and “referrals” should be tallied [1] [8].