In 2025, a tectonic change in the area of immigration enforcement will occur in the United States, which is regulated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The agency now carries out a massive increase in the arrest of immigrants without criminal records that characterize its day to day activities. Independent policy institute reports show that the number of noncriminal immigrants arrested has now hit close to 3,800 per week compared to 308 arrests per week they recorded in 2017 representing an increase of 1,100 percent.
These arrests have come at a time of new arrest quotas reportedly, 3,000 arrests a day in the country. These quotas have changed the model of operation at ICE and they encourage active field agents who put pressure to detain as many people as possible by ignoring criminal investigations that need precise attention.
These new tactics now revolve around public areas, worksites and set-ups and immigration check-ins. Others in detention include Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, the long-term undocumented populations with non-criminal records and migrants fleeing persecution and seeking asylum protection in the United States.
Who is being arrested?
Shifting arrest priorities and record-breaking numbers
Between January and June 2025, ICE detained over 100,000 individuals across the United States. An analysis of internal agency statistics shows that 65–72% of these arrests involved individuals with no criminal convictions. Notably, 93% of all detainees lacked any record of violent offenses.
An increasing number of these arrests involve immigrants swept up during non-custodial actions, including check-ins with ICE, which were historically low-risk procedural requirements. Now, about 79% of such check-in encounters result in arrests if individuals are found to have expired visas or pending immigration cases.
This broad net reflects a redefinition of enforcement priorities. During the last few years, ICE targeted deporting individuals who present an apparent threat to public safety. Interestingly, presently, enforcement embraces individuals who failed to appear at court sessions, usually because of misinformation or lack of legal representation, and individuals whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has expired.
Geographic and demographic breadth
Detainees of the main nationalities are still represented by persons of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Nevertheless, the arrests of the Venezuelan, Colombian, and Haitian nationals are increasing too.
This broadened focus has raised the concern of legal watchdogs who note that the arrest policy is now being directed more towards immigrants who escape poor political situations or violent conflicts in their native countries.
Impact on immigrant communities and civil liberties
Community fear and institutional distrust
These arrests have become so prominent and regular that they have instilled fear among the communities of immigrants particularly those residing in sanctuary cities and immigrant-friendly states. Immigrants have complained of not visiting hospitals, schools or using the public transport as they fear arrest.
This mass hysteria is added by arrests at odd hours and even in surprising places. In a number of instances, ICE agents have arrested people at church services, day labor employment places as well as even at the libraries.
As reported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as well as other rights organizations, there have been rises in civil grievances, such as due process violations, false imprisonment arrests through-mistaken identity and wrongful detention of individuals with asylum claims in the pipeline. The tendencies have revitalized judicial attacks on the Department of Homeland Security and ICE internal control systems.
ICE agents under strain
The shift in policy has also affected ICE agents themselves. Internal communications reviewed by media outlets describe growing resentment among field agents who feel the new quotas compromise public trust and officer safety.
There has been a 500% increase in reported assaults on ICE officers, including instances where agents were dragged by vehicles or confronted by armed civilians. The Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged these incidents, noting that rhetoric against enforcement personnel has resulted in online doxing and threats to agents’ families.
Despite these dangers, agents say that they are being forced to prioritize arrests based on quotas rather than the severity of legal infractions—raising ethical concerns even among long-serving ICE personnel.
The legal and political backdrop of the 2025 enforcement model
Policy reversals and pressure for performance
The current administration’s enforcement strategy deviates sharply from both the Trump-era criminal alien focus and the Obama administration’s “felons, not families” mantra. Under increasing political pressure to demonstrate immigration control ahead of the 2026 midterms, the Department of Homeland Security has implemented a performance-driven enforcement model that values arrest numbers as a metric of success.
Nevertheless, legal scholars have said that such a model threatens fundamental constitutional safeguards. Immigration courts are currently at unmanageable levels and numerous cases now include people who were held without an attorney and whose routes through the law remained under consideration.
These issues have led to the Congress to bring forward bills aimed at providing oversight to ICE detention procedures such as the right to a bond hearing and a greater demand of probable cause before arrest is made.
Public and grassroots response
The policy changes have sparked an increase in local organizing. Communities across the U.S. are rallying to provide legal support, raise awareness, and coordinate rapid response teams to monitor ICE activity and help families avoid separation.
Jay Jay, a New York-based immigrant rights advocate, described the situation during a televised interview with Democracy Now:
“These arrests tear apart lives and sow distrust in institutions meant to protect us.”
Jay Jay has become a vocal critic of ICE’s new operational framework and frequently posts updates about enforcement activity and community organizing.
Great reporting in The Atlantic yesterday, which I cited in my longer piece in The Big Picture. Here is the kicker: ICE is pulling agents off criminal work such as drug cartels and human trafficking to work on civil immigration enforcement, i.e. going after undocumented migrants.… pic.twitter.com/3wE2E7Sf9l
— Jay Kuo (@nycjayjay) July 11, 2025
Consequences for U.S. immigration policy and law enforcement
Redefining the purpose of ICE
This surge in noncriminal arrests has reignited debate over ICE’s institutional role. Initially created to combat transnational crime and border violations, ICE has increasingly functioned as a generalized interior police force.
Critics warn that this evolution blurs the line between civil immigration enforcement and criminal law enforcement, increasing the risk of civil liberties violations. Proposals to restructure or even abolish ICE have resurfaced, particularly as stories emerge of immigrant families being separated and individuals deported without hearings.
Legal system overload and procedural breakdown
Immigration courts are struggling under the weight of new cases. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), the backlog has now exceeded 3.5 million cases. Judges report being assigned as many as 80 cases per week, often involving individuals who were arrested with no clear legal determination of removability.
Funding deficits have been experienced by legal aid organizations which attempt to defend the vulnerable in custody. In the case of asylum seekers particularly, quick trials and frequent success are themselves no guarantee that the claimant will not be turned away, even though s/he may have a good case.
Financial and operational inefficiency
The budget of ICE has risen to more than 10 billion dollars by the year 2025, and the largest share of it accounts for detention and transportation logistics. However, most people say that the outcomes are not worth the spending.
Research indicates that most of the noncriminal detainees do not present any flight and security risk and would be handled by the alternatives to detention program-like-ankle monitor or community supervision at even one-tenth the cost.
A reckoning with enforcement, rights, and reform
It is more than a political turnaround: The 2025 increase in ICE noncriminal arrests throws into sharp relief the contradictions of American immigration governance. The government is failing to offer viable modes of law or uniform humanitarian judging as it enhances interior policing.
This reaction by the civil society, employee union of ICE, and the immigrant groups is indicative of a possible unsustainability of this model. Cries of reform have become stronger, yet solutions on Capitol Hill are becoming bogged down in politics, with conflicting interests layering and politics around election time complicated prospects of reaching compromises.
What ICE can (or should) do in the future will require a balance between federal will and direction, court oversight, and societal pressure on where and how ICE focuses enforcement policies. In the meantime, the agency keeps sweeping wide through the American communities, leaving behind doubts concerning the concept of justice, effectiveness and moral boundaries of the administrative power.
The next few months will have a say on whether this time will be a time of a turning point or another installment of a pattern of fear, resistance and institutional paralysis in the issue of immigration enforcement.
