President Donald Trump’s immigration policies have quadrupled immigration detention and quintupled deportationsin addition to maintaining a tendency to arrest any undocumented person, regardless of whether they have no prison record, reveals a new report from Deportation Recordsdata Conducting.
“ICE detentions more than quadrupled (4.4 times). ICE transfers from jails and prisons, which accounted for the majority of detentions before 2025, practically doubled,” the report states.
These transfers are possible with the 287(g) agreements that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) makes with local and state police. From January 2025 to March 2026, the Trump administration has reached 1,501 such agreements. At the beginning of the government there were only 137 agreements.
The types of ICE arrests have also changed, as there have been much more operations on the streets than before.
“ICE Street Arrests Increased So Soonincluding not only detentions in neighborhoods, but also in immigration courts and in ICE field offices during routine checks,” the report warns. “Detentions outside of jails or prisons, of this magnitude, constitute a new phenomenon.”
Trump’s new policies have allowed a more than eight-fold increase in arrests of people without criminal records, contrary to the argument that only “criminals” are detained.
Because arrests quadrupled, deportations also increased. This policy is addressed on two fronts: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) increased the number of beds to hold people and processed more people to remove them from the US.
“This increase in capacity was the result of both new funding (for new detention centers and more beds in existing centers) and a decrease in border arrests,” it states.
Previously, ICE primarily released people who did not pose a danger to public safety, especially if they were not charged or had been convicted of a crime. That changed.
“People without criminal records used to be released on bail. This changed in 2025,” it adds.
On average, during President Joe Biden’s administration, people were released 60 days after their arrest, but now this practice has become rare, with only 7% of cases.
“The deportation rate within two months of arrest doubled for this group, from 27% to 57%,” it adds. “The decline in the release rate explained most of that increase in deportations. Perhaps because of the lower release rate, many more people chose to drop their cases: voluntary departures and returns (which are rare compared to expulsions) increased 28-fold.”
A new less violent policy?
The new Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin said during his Senate confirmation process that his idea is to maintain Trump’s immigration policiesbut “without being critical news” on a daily basis.
“My goal in six months is for us to not be critical news every day,” Mullin said. “My goal is for people to understand that we are out there, that we protect them and that we work with them.”
However, Mullin has a vision on immigrants aligned with that of President Trump and the detention of any undocumented person.
In his first press conference this week, the secretary launched a new and controversial idea: avoid international flights in sanctuary cities.
It is not clear how that idea would be implemented or if it would violate any federal law, but Mullin considered that airports in those cities should not have immigration services, although the security and adjustment of foreign travelers at airports is a federal matter, not a state one.
Keep reading:
• Soldier’s wife detained by ICE in US military unsuitable is released.
• Tom Homan questions Democrats for their rejection of the presence of ICE in voting centers
• TSA agents criticize the arrival of ICE at airports
