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The variety of detainees in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody has reached a brand new report excessive, surpassing 70,000 for the primary time within the deportation company’s 23-year historical past, in response to inside Division of Homeland Safety knowledge obtained by CBS Information.
As of Thursday, ICE was holding about 73,000 people going through deportation in its custody throughout the nation, the very best stage recorded by the company and an 84% improve from the identical time in 2025, when its detention inhabitants hovered under 40,000, the interior statistics present.
The Trump administration has stated it’s aiming to have the ability to detain upwards of 100,000 immigration detainees at any given time, as a part of its government-wide effort to hold out a deportation crackdown of unprecedented proportions.
Former senior U.S. immigration officers stated they weren’t conscious of some other interval in American historical past when the U.S. authorities had held extra folks in immigration detention.
“It’s completely a report, definitely in fashionable occasions,” stated Doris Meissner, a Clinton administration official who led the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, a predecessor of ICE and different federal immigration companies.
The DHS figures obtained by CBS Information present almost 67,000 of the people in ICE custody on Thursday had been single grownup detainees going through deportation due to alleged violations of U.S. immigration legislation. One other 6,000 detainees had been categorised as household items, or mother and father and underage youngsters taken into custody as households for alleged immigration violations.
ICE detains foreigners positioned in deportation proceedings due to immigration violations, similar to coming into the U.S. illegally or overstaying a visa, in addition to authorized immigrants whose standing lapses or is revoked due to felony offenses. A few of these held by the company have felony prices or convictions, along with being accused of civil immigration violations.
The inner DHS knowledge signifies roughly 47% — or about 34,000 — of ICE’s detainees had felony prices or convictions within the U.S. The numbers don’t embrace particulars on the severity of the felony information, which may vary from felonies and different severe crimes, to misdemeanors and immigration-related offenses.
The remainder of the detainees are categorised by ICE as “immigration violators,” that means they’re neither convicted of crimes or going through prices within the U.S. and had been being held solely as a result of civil immigration violations.
Whereas all three classes of ICE detainees — immigration violators, these with felony prices and people with felony convictions — have grown because the begin of the second Trump administration, figures posted by the company each two weeks present the non-criminal group has seen essentially the most acute and speedy rise.
When focusing solely on ICE detainees initially arrested by the company — and never Border Patrol — there was a 2,500% surge in non-criminal detainees from Jan. 26, 2025 (945) to Jan. 7, 2026 (24,644), in response to the newest publicly out there authorities knowledge. Throughout that point, the variety of detainees arrested by ICE who’ve felony convictions or prices has grown by 80% and 243%, respectively.
In an announcement to CBS Information, DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin stated 70% of these arrested by ICE beneath the second Trump administration — not these at present within the company’s custody — have felony prices or convictions within the U.S. She stated these listed as “immigration violators” may have felony histories overseas or terrorism ties.
Regarding the rising detainee inhabitants, McLaughlin stated, “As we arrest and take away felony unlawful aliens and public security threats from the U.S., ICE has labored diligently to acquire higher mandatory detention area whereas avoiding overcrowding.”
“Because of the One Large Lovely Invoice, ICE now has historic funding to safe sufficient detention capability to keep up a mean each day inhabitants of 100,000 unlawful aliens and 80,000 new ICE beds,” she added.
The regular progress in ICE’s detainee inhabitants over the previous months comes after the company acquired an unprecedented infusion of funding via the One Large Lovely Act final yr, together with $45 billion alone to develop detention area. Along with its conventional use of county jails and for-profit prisons, ICE has expanded its detention capability through the use of different services, together with navy websites like Fort Bliss in Texas.
Republican officers in locations like Florida and Louisiana have provided state services, just like the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” detention middle within the Everglades, to carry these going through deportation. ICE has additionally used area places of work in main U.S. cities to carry detainees, usually for days, though such services will not be designed for long-term detention.
“We’re speaking a couple of system that already, previous to the Large Lovely Invoice, constituted the biggest detention and removing infrastructure of any nation on this planet — and now it is being placed on steroids,” stated Meissner, now a senior fellow on the Migration Coverage Institute, a non-partisan assume tank.
Underneath President Trump, ICE has been given a broad mandate to turbocharge immigration arrests and deportations, with the company rescinding Biden-era guidelines that required officers to largely deal with arresting severe offenders, nationwide safety threats and up to date arrivals within the U.S. illegally.
The administration has dispatched 1000’s of ICE officers and Border Patrol brokers to stage highly-visible raids in main American cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, the place their ways and use of pressure have been decried as overly harsh and indiscriminate by native leaders and a few residents.
Most lately, the administration has deployed roughly 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol brokers to the streets of Minneapolis and surrounding communities, an operation DHS has known as the biggest in its historical past. Clashes and protests there have intensified because the killing of Minnesota resident Renee Good by an ICE officer final week.
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