What proportion of immigration‑enforcement actions in 2025–2026 were carried out by permanent ICE employees versus detailees from other federal agencies?

1. Why the question matters: capacity versus partnership

Understanding whether enforcement actions are led by ICE’s own ranks or supported by detailees matters because it changes where legal responsibility, training standards, and public accountability rest; reporting documents a deliberate build‑out of ICE’s internal capacity in 2025—an expansion that the Department of Homeland Security touted as more than doubling ICE’s workforce and accelerating training to deploy officers quickly—while separate commentary warns that enforcement authority has broadened to include participation or coordination with other federal agencies in some operations ^{[1] [2]}.

2. What the sources directly show about ICE staffing and deployments

Government Executive reported that ICE exceeded an aggressive hiring goal in 2025, growing its force from roughly 10,000 to more than 22,000 officers and agents within a year and shortening training timelines so new recruits could enter the field faster, which strongly indicates that a large share of operations could be carried out by newly hired ICE personnel rather than borrowed staff ^[1].

3. What the sources say about cross‑agency involvement

Several legal and industry advisories note that enforcement activity in 2025 involved or at least permitted actions by multiple federal entities—references include the Drug Enforcement Administration, ATF, and other agencies being part of the broader sweep of federal authority in workplaces and “protected areas” following DHS directives—suggesting that detailees or partnered agents sometimes participate in or facilitate operations, but these sources do not quantify how often that occurred relative to ICE’s direct actions ^{[2] [3]}.

4. Public reporting on volume of actions but not the personnel mix

Coverage and legal advisories document high volumes of worksite raids and audits in 2025—examples include reports of at least 40 worksite enforcement actions producing over 1,100 arrests in the first seven months of 2025 and claims that ICE detained more than 100,000 people since January 20, 2025—yet these itemizations focus on counts of operations and arrests rather than cataloguing the provenance of the officers on the ground, so they cannot be used to compute the requested proportion ^{[4] [5]}.

5. Limits of the record and plausible inferences

The contemporaneous material makes two linked propositions clear: ICE massively expanded its own ranks and ramped up enforcement ^[1], and federal policy changes allowed or encouraged broader multi‑agency enforcement roles ^[2]. What the sources do not provide is a systematic itemization of each 2025–2026 enforcement action with staffing origin (ICE permanent employee versus detailee), so an exact percentage split cannot be produced from this reporting alone; a conservative inference—based on the doubling of ICE personnel and accounts of rapid deployment—is that a substantial majority of operations were likely staffed by ICE’s own agents, with detailees or interagency partners participating in a visible but smaller share of actions, especially complex or multi‑jurisdictional raids ^{[1] [2]}.

6. Alternative readings and hidden incentives

Stakeholders advance competing emphases: enforcement‑industry and employer advisories stress the operational reality of more ICE boots on the ground and urge preparation ^{[6] [4]}, while advocacy groups and legal observers focus on civil‑liberties concerns about expanded authorities and cross‑agency reach ^{[7] [8]}. Both perspectives have implicit agendas—legal advisors counsel risk mitigation for clients, and advocacy groups highlight abuses to mobilize opposition—so their selective coverage of staffing details cannot substitute for an independent, itemized operational audit ^{[6] [7]}.