How many us citizens has I’ve detained over the past year
Executive summary
Independent reporting by ProPublica, summarized and republished by outlets including OPB, has documented more than 170 instances in 2025 in which U.S. citizens were detained or held by ICE or other DHS immigration agents [1] [2], while federal agencies have pushed back, insisting detentions of citizens are rare and the result of lawful operations [3]. Congressional investigators and news outlets say the true number is hard to pin down because ICE does not systematically track citizenship status in a way that makes comprehensive counting possible [4] [5].
1. How many citizens have been detained: the best available count
The clearest public tally comes from ProPublica’s yearlong compilation, which found "more than 170" cases of U.S. citizens being detained, held or otherwise taken into ICE custody during 2025; that dataset has been cited by news organizations and legal advocates as the most complete count to date [1] [2]. Multiple press reports and advocacy pieces have repeated that figure as illustrating a pattern of wrongful or questionable detentions of citizens amid aggressive enforcement operations [6] [7].
2. Why official sources and watchdogs say the number is contested
The Department of Homeland Security has publicly disputed some media accounts, asserting that ICE does not deport U.S. citizens and that its operations are “highly targeted,” and DHS statements argue many cited cases involve mischaracterizations or concurrent criminal arrests rather than immigration detentions alone [3]. At the same time, a Senate subcommittee inquiry and other oversight efforts have focused explicitly on citizen detentions because federal investigators say ICE and CBP do not reliably track or publish comprehensive data on citizens held during enforcement actions, making an authoritative federal total unavailable [5] [4].
3. How reporters and researchers compiled the “more than 170” figure
ProPublica’s count was built from case-by-case reporting: local news stories, court filings, lawyers’ accounts and public records to identify instances in which people later confirmed as U.S. citizens were held by immigration agents, whether briefly during raids and traffic stops or for days in processing facilities [1]. Legal groups and law firms have duplicated and amplified the reporting; for example, advocacy outlets and a private law firm post summarized ProPublica’s findings to warn that citizens—particularly Latinos and naturalized Americans—have been among those detained [2] [6].
4. Patterns, context and competing narratives
Reporting emphasizes that many of the cases involved Latino or naturalized citizens who were questioned about birthplace or held during broader operations, feeding a wider climate of fear in immigrant communities and prompting some citizens to carry passports as a precaution [7] [6]. At the same time, DHS and ICE messaging emphasizes enforcement of criminal aliens and cites statistics about arrests of noncitizens with criminal records and high-volume removals to frame their actions as targeting public-safety risks [8] [9]. Oversight reporting warns that ICE’s expanded operations in 2025 coincided with record detention populations and multiple transparency gaps that complicate assessing whether detentions reflected mistakes, lawful arrests, or inappropriate practices [10] [11].
5. Limits, uncertainty and what remains unknown
Senate investigators and journalists alike note that ICE’s datasets and public reporting do not reliably flag U.S. citizenship in a way that supports a single, verifiable national count, and oversight documents stress that patterns seen in compiled media tallies may under- or over-count depending on the methodology used [5] [4]. Where reporting cannot be independently corroborated through ICE’s official records, those gaps are acknowledged by watchdogs and lawmakers, and DHS has disputed specific stories—meaning that the “more than 170” figure represents the best public compilation rather than an incontrovertible government statistic [1] [3].
6. Bottom line
Public investigations and journalism have documented at least 170 instances in 2025 in which people later confirmed as U.S. citizens were detained by ICE or DHS agents, a count embraced by reporters and advocacy groups as indicative of a broader problem even as DHS disputes the characterization and says citizen detentions are not systemic; however, the absence of a reliable, agency-level tracking metric means that no definitive federal total exists in the public record [1] [3] [5].