Tens of thousands of people were detained and deported during US government shutdown | US federal government shutdown 2025

New data reveals that U.S. immigration officials arrested, detained and deported tens of thousands of people in operations across the country during the federal government shutdown.

The arrests led to a marked increase in the number of people held in immigration jails; More than 65,000 people are currently detained nationwide; This is the highest number of people ever held in immigration detention.

While other federal employees were furloughed and furloughed and many public services remained limited or unavailable, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials continued enforcement operations across the country in line with the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration agenda. This included the detention of thousands of people with no criminal record.

In total, ICE arrested and detained nearly 54,000 people during the shutdown. The agency also deported approximately 56,000 people during this period. During the same period, Customs and Border Protection also arrested thousands of people, and ICE arrest figures do not account for all people held in ICE custody.

The latest data covers the period from October 1 to November 15, the entire government shutdown period that ended on November 12, and three additional days. The release of official statistics Thursday evening marks the first time ICE has released data on ongoing arrests and detentions since September.

Using ICE’s data, The Guardian continued to track the number of people arrested, detained and deported by the agency.

During the shutdown, top officials at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), repeatedly claimed that immigration enforcement officers were arresting the “worst of the worst.” But ICE’s latest data shows that more than 21,000 people without criminal records were arrested and detained by ICE; This number again exceeds those who have been convicted of a crime or have pending criminal prosecutions.

Immigrants without criminal records remain the largest group in U.S. immigration detention. Being undocumented is not a crime in the US; This is a civil violation.

Adam Sawyer, director of research at Relevant Research, a group of academics and researchers who study immigration data, said the 65,000 people detained by ICE at various facilities, many of them run by private-sector contractors, is “the highest number of detainees since at least the dawn of the modern era of immigration detention, starting in the 1980s.”

In the first week of Donald Trump’s second term, in January of this year, there were 950 people in immigration detention arrested by ICE without any criminal history, according to historical ICE data collected by the Guardian.

But the latest data shows a 2,131% jump from 950 to nearly 22,000.

The latest data shows ICE arrested and detained more than 16,000 people with criminal histories and nearly 15,300 people pending charges.

“This dovetails with the Trump administration’s enforcement hysteria in Chicago, which Trump justified as necessary to catch dangerous ‘illegal’ criminals,” Austin Kocher, an assistant research professor at Syracuse University, wrote about the latest data released.

Koçer analyzes Tracking ICE numbers, arrest and detention statistics. He added that the latest data calls into question Trump’s “outrageous and provocative claims.”

Earlier this year, top DHS officials ordered ICE to detain at least 3,000 people every day, or a million a year. In leaked emails obtained by the Guardian, ICE officials were also instructed to detain “collaterals”; This is the agency’s term for people who are present during an arrest operation without a warrant.

The administration has also dramatically changed the way immigration enforcement is conducted as ICE operates with a massive funding increase. Major immigration enforcement operations targeted major cities across the United States, while other federal agencies were ordered to assist in the detention of immigrants. A growing number of local officials are being assigned to conduct immigration enforcement efforts in cooperation with ICE.

Previously, other agencies within DHS played a larger role in immigration-related apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border. However, with Trump’s return to the White House, additional restrictions along the border have led to a decrease in the number of arrests made by border officials. Now, those same border officials, including border patrol agents, have been deployed into the interior of the United States to assist ICE’s detention efforts.

With ICE’s excessive budget and an increase in arrest operations across the country, immigration officials have also detained persons with legal status, including citizens.

The Trump administration has embarked on major operations in major US cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina.