Fact check: What are the most common countries of origin for illegal immigrants arrested in the US in 2025?

1. What the pieces claim about origins — broad patterns, not a ranked list

The supplied analyses collectively indicate a pattern rather than a definitive table: Pew’s 2022 population breakdown is cited to assert that Latin America supplies the majority of unauthorized residents—77% in that baseline—with Mexico and Central America especially prominent, which implies those countries likely top arrest figures in subsequent years ^[1]. Other articles highlight specific nationalities involved in removals or migration flows—India, Cuba, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and South Sudan—showing diversity in enforcement encounters, but these mentions are episodic and not presented as population-level rankings, limiting their evidentiary weight for 2025 arrest counts ^{[2] [3]}.

2. Enforcement stories emphasize locations and impacts more than origin statistics

Several analyses focus on ICE operations, workplace and Home Depot-area raids, and the local economic consequences—such as construction and service-sector labor shortages—rather than presenting a national breakdown of arrested persons by country ^{[5] [6]}. These pieces underscore that enforcement posture and tactics shape the visible profile of arrests (for example, raids at day labor sites) which can skew which nationalities appear in local arrest tallies without reflecting national-level origin prevalence; that operational focus complicates using arrest notices to infer country-of-origin rankings in 2025 ^[4].

3. Self-deportation and encounters complicate interpretation of “arrest” data

One source reports a surge in self-deportations—over 400,000 by mid-June 2025—alongside declining border encounters, suggesting large flows are altering where and how immigration enforcement contacts occur ^[4]. Self-deportations are not the same as arrests, and they can disproportionately involve nationals of countries with easier repatriation diplomatic pathways. The distinction between encounters, self-deportations, administrative removals, and criminal arrests matters: the supplied materials conflate enforcement outcomes, so extracting a clear country-of-origin arrest ranking from them is not possible without additional, disaggregated data ^[4].

4. Source limitations: dates, scope, and potential agendas

The analyses span February through August 2025 and rely heavily on specific incident reporting and a 2022 Pew estimate; none presents a contemporaneous federal arrest breakdown for 2025 by nationality ^{[1] [3] [4]}. Several outlets show a local or advocacy tilt—coverage of Home Depot raids and business impacts carries a pro-labor/industry framing, while pieces on removals emphasize enforcement outcomes—so selective emphasis may reflect agendas that prioritize anecdotal enforcement examples over population statistics, further reducing confidence in using these texts alone to rank origins ^{[5] [6]}.

5. Points of agreement across the materials: Latin America’s ongoing prominence

Across the supplied analyses, there is consistent corroboration that Latin America—especially Mexico and Central America—constitutes the largest share of the unauthorized population in recent years, per Pew’s 2022 data. This cross-source concordance supports a reasonable inference that Latin American countries likely remain highly represented among arrests in 2025, even as operational dynamics and new migration streams add diversity to enforcement contacts ^{[1] [4]}. However, inference is not the same as direct measurement; the pieces do not supply 2025 arrest tallies by country.

6. Contrasting signals: rising visibility of non-Latin origins in enforcement

Isolated but repeated mentions of nationals from India, Cuba, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, and South Sudan show that non-Latin origins appear in removal and arrest narratives in 2025 reporting supplied here ^{[2] [3]}. These references signal geographic diversification in migration flows and removal cases, but they do not quantify prevalence. The presence of these nationalities in anecdotes and specific deportation cases points to policy and diplomatic factors influencing who is removed or detained, rather than proving they are among the most common arrest origins nationwide ^{[2] [3]}.

7. What’s missing and what authoritative data would settle this

None of the supplied analyses includes a 2025 Department of Homeland Security, ICE, or CBP statistical release disaggregating arrests or administrative removals by country of nationality for the full year; that absence is decisive for this question. A definitive answer requires monthly or annual DHS/ICE/CBP datasets that list apprehensions, criminal arrests, and removals by nationality for 2025. The supplied sources provide context and plausible inferences—Latin America dominant, diversification emerging—but cannot substitute for official 2025 statistics ^{[1] [4]}.

8. Bottom line for the reader: cautious inference, not certitude

From the available material, the strongest, evidence-backed conclusion is that Latin American countries—Mexico and Central American nations—likely remained the most common countries of origin among unauthorized residents and therefore among many enforcement encounters in 2025, while episodic reporting documents arrests/removals involving a broader set of countries including India, Cuba, and several Asian and African states ^{[1] [2] [3]}. To move from plausibility to certainty requires authoritative, disaggregated 2025 arrest/removal data from federal immigration agencies; that data is not present in these supplied analyses ^[4].