ICE sets new record pace for deportations

ICE has hit a record pace for formal deportations, averaging more than 1,450 removals daily in the middle of January, according to agency data.

If it keeps up that pace for a year, the number of formal removals will top the half-million mark for the first time in history.

That was just the start of the new records.

The data, current as of Jan. 25, showed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was booking migrants at a record rate of more than 1,500 daily. ICE had more than 70,000 migrants in detention, another record.

The number of book-ins, a rough proxy for ICE arrests, and the pace of deportations were below the administration’s goal of 1 million annually, but they do indicate an agency beginning to hit its stride after an infusion of tens of billions of dollars this summer.

The latest data covers much of the enforcement surge in Minnesota, where some 3,000 officers have been deployed to carry out President Trump’s plans.

Simon Hankinson, an immigration expert at The Heritage Foundation, said the numbers offer a view of the administration’s efforts beyond the hot spots.

“It shows that behind the scenes of the public relations mess in Minneapolis and other places, they’re getting the work done,” he said.

He was particularly impressed by the figure of 70,766 detention beds occupied as of Jan. 25.

That was up from 39,328 exactly a year earlier as President Biden turned over the operation to Mr. Trump.

The composition of those detained also has changed dramatically.

In January 2025, 62% of those in ICE detention came from border arrests, and just 14,882, or 38%, were ICE arrests.

That ratio has since flipped: More than 84% of those held by ICE, nearly 60,000 in total, were from the agency’s arrests.

Far more are rank-and-file illegal immigrants without criminal records. Some 44% of the nearly 60,000 detainees had no criminal convictions or pending charges.

Last year at this point, the share of those without criminal entanglements was just 6%.

The Department of Homeland Security says those numbers are misleading because many of the migrants without criminal histories in the U.S. may have been charged in their home countries.

“It is a lot worse than that statistic lets on,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Washington Times last month.

Austin Kocher, a professor at Syracuse University who tracks Homeland Security Department data, argues that the ratio might be even more stark than the ICE data suggests.

In a Substack post last week, he isolated 11,296 arrests by ICE from Sept. 21 to Jan. 7. He said 902 of those arrested had criminal convictions and another 2,273 had pending charges. The other 72% had neither.

Ms. McLaughlin also cites a much higher deportation number than the new ICE data suggests. She said the number of deportations in the Trump administration has exceeded 600,000.

Experts have questioned that figure, saying it’s difficult to determine who is being counted, but it appears to include both border turnarounds and arrests in the country’s interior.

Both book-ins and removals are also well above the rate at this point last year, just days into the Trump administration.

At that time, ICE was averaging fewer than 300 book-ins daily. It’s now operating at five times that rate.

At this time last year, it was formally removing about 630 people daily, and a large portion of those were border cases.

Now, ICE has more than doubled that deportation rate. Given the calm at the border, almost all current removals are migrants arrested in the interior.