What nationalitys are most affected by ICE
Executive summary
Government and independent datasets show that ICE enforcement disproportionately affects non‑citizens from Mexico and Central American countries — particularly the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador) — with important numbers also coming from Cuba, Colombia and other Latin American nations; this pattern is visible in ICE and DHS releases and in NGO analyses that process those releases [1] [2] [3]. The composition of the detained population is also shaped by policy choices: recent surges in custody have brought large numbers of people with no U.S. criminal convictions into ICE detention, while arrests concentrate where state and local partners collaborate with federal authorities [4] [5] [6].
1. Data sources that show who ICE detains and removes
The clearest way to answer which nationalities are most affected is to look at DHS/ICE administrative dashboards and the data projects that republish and analyze them: ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations dashboards and DHS OHSS monthly tables contain book‑ins, removals and encounters broken down by citizenship, and the Deportation Data Project and Vera Institute have processed those raw releases into searchable datasets and visualizations that reveal country‑level trends [7] [1] [2] [3]. These sources are the basis for claims about top nationalities in detention, because they enumerate arrests, book‑ins and removals by citizenship rather than anecdote.
2. The broad pattern: Latin American nationals dominate ICE figures
Across the datasets processed by Vera, Deportation Data Project and TRAC, nationals from Mexico and the Central American “Northern Triangle” appear repeatedly among the largest groups in ICE custody and in Border Patrol encounters; those same analyses show sizeable populations from Cuba and parts of South America in detention and removal statistics too [3] [2] [8]. ICE and OHSS outputs explicitly publish “Top 100 Citizenships” and book‑ins by citizenship, which is why reporting and policy debate focus on those Latin American countries as the most affected [1] [7].
3. Why nationality maps onto enforcement: geography and policy
The predominance of Mexican and Central American nationals in ICE data reflects geography and migration flows through the U.S.–Mexico border, where Border Patrol and ICE make many initial arrests and transfers into ICE detention; DHS statistical systems flag that the location and agency of apprehension are key variables in book‑in counts [1] [9]. Policy choices at the federal level — notably resource surges, expanded detentions and cooperation agreements with state and local jails — determine where arrests happen and thus which nationalities are most represented in custody at any given moment [7] [6].
4. Criminality claims vs. custody composition: competing narratives
The administration emphasizes that many ICE arrests involve people with criminal convictions or pending charges, a claim repeated in media briefings (70% figure cited by DHS) [10]. Independent analyses and ICE’s day‑of‑population snapshots counter that a substantial share of those held in detention at points in late 2025 and early 2026 had no criminal convictions, meaning nationality patterns in custody reflect immigration enforcement more than criminal‑justice priorities [4] [5] [11]. Both claims are supported by different slices of the data: arrests (events) versus the detained population on a given date (stock) — and each slice can shift which nationalities appear most affected [7] [4].
5. Regional and institutional caveats, and what the public data do not show
Public datasets are rich but incomplete: DHS/OHSS and ICE dashboards document encounters, book‑ins and removals by citizenship, and third‑party projects enable country‑level rankings, but gaps remain in timeliness, transparency and the way “criminality” is classified — limits that complicate definitive, day‑to‑day national‑level rankings [1] [2] [3]. Local practices (e.g., whether a state fully collaborates with ICE) can skew which nationalities are disproportionately arrested in certain states, meaning national totals mask important geographic variation [6].
6. Bottom line: who is most affected today
The best, publicly available evidence shows ICE’s detained and removal populations are dominated by nationals of Mexico and Central American countries (with notable contributions from Cuba and other Latin American nations), and that recent policy shifts have increased the detention of people without U.S. criminal convictions — a mix revealed by ICE/DHS releases and by independent data projects that republish and analyze those records [1] [2] [4] [3]. Precise rank‑order lists for any single day require consulting the underlying OHSS/ICE dashboards or Deportation Data Project extracts because national totals vary with enforcement surges and geographic concentration [7] [2].