Trump administration targets people with no criminal records, uses detention to pressure them to drop cases
WASHINGTON, D.C., Wednesday, January 14 — A new report released today by the American Immigration Council shows that the Trump administration is locking up hundreds of thousands of people, most of them without criminal records, in a harsh immigration detention system that makes it nearly impossible to litigate or secure their release.
Read the report here.
The report, “The Expansion of Immigration Detention in the Trump Administration’s Second Term,” reveals how historic funding increases and aggressive enforcement tactics have pushed immigration detention to the highest levels in U.S. history. Rather than addressing serious public safety threats, the government spends billions of dollars on mass detention to pressure non-threatening people to abandon their cases and accept deportation.
As the Trump administration expands its plans for mass deportation, the impact extends far beyond detention centers. DHS’ aggressive tactics during large-scale enforcement actions in American neighborhoods across the country have already resulted in tragic and avoidable deaths and reveal the human cost of an immigration enforcement system that operates with little oversight or accountability.
“This has nothing to do with law and order. Under mass deportation, we are seeing the creation of a mass immigrant detention system on a scale the United States has never seen before, where people with no criminal records are routinely locked up with no clear path to release,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. “Over the next three years, billions more will be poured into a detention system that rivals the entire federal criminal prison system. The goal is not public safety, but pressure on people to waive their rights and accept deportation.”
Read the report here.
The number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees will increase by nearly 75% in 2025, rising from about 40,000 at the beginning of the year to 66,000 in early December, a record high, according to the report. And with Congress approving $45 billion in new detention funding, the system could more than triple in size over the next four years, the report warns.
Key findings of the report include:
Who is detained is changing dramatically. Arrests of people with no criminal record jumped 2,450 percent in Trump’s first year. This is due to an increase in tactics such as “suspicious” arrests, patrols, workplace raids, and rearrests of people who appear for immigration court hearings or ICE inspections. The percentage of people arrested by ICE and held without a criminal record rose from 6% in January to 41% by December. The detention system is rapidly expanding, exacerbating an already harmful situation. By early December, ICE was using more than 100 more facilities to detain immigrants than at the beginning of the year. For the first time in history, thousands of migrants arrested inland are being held in makeshift tent camps in harsh conditions. More people died in ICE custody in 2025 than in the previous four years combined. People are deprived of the opportunity to ask a judge for release. The new policy made long-term, indefinite detention the norm. The Trump administration is pursuing policies that would strip millions of people in detention of their right to bail hearings to petition for release into the community while their immigration cases are reviewed. This includes people who have lived in the United States for decades. The regime uses detention to facilitate deportations. By November 2025, for every person released from ICE custody, more than 14 people will be deported directly from custody. This compares to a roughly 1:2 ratio a year ago. As the regime expands detention, it also eviscerates surveillance systems. The rapid increase in detentions has been accompanied by significant cuts to internal oversight bodies and new restrictions on parliamentary inspections. This decline in oversight has implications beyond the detention facilities themselves. With ICE operating with few checks on its authority, aggressive internal enforcement in urban areas has led to preventable harm and deaths, highlighting how a lack of accountability is putting lives at risk.
“While the Trump administration continues to falsely claim that it is pursuing the ‘worst of the worst,’ security is just an excuse to lock up immigrants and encourage them to abstain,” said Naina Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council. “The deplorable conditions in detention facilities are driving people to accept deportation, further accelerating the regime’s inhumane deportation quotas and goals.”
This report profiles three people whose experiences illustrate the real-world impact of this historic expansion of detention.
The green card holder and father of two was detained by ICE at the airport after being told his past convictions did not jeopardize his legal status. ICE then ignored his medical problems for months while he was in custody. An asylum seeker who was granted humanitarian protection by an immigration judge remains detained months later without explanation as ICE seeks deportation to a third country, claiming he received better treatment in federal prison while serving time for an immigration crime. DACA recipients detained after criminal arrest were repeatedly transported across the country and witnessed consistently poor conditions in multiple different detention centers as ICE searched for available bed space.
Billions of dollars in additional funding have already been approved, and the report warns that migrant detention could grow even further, with even more severe human, legal and economic costs for families, communities and the country as a whole.
“This is a system built to create deportation, not justice,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “When detention is the default response to immigration cases, the costs are borne by everyone. Families are torn apart, due process is set aside, and billions of taxpayer dollars are wasted on unnecessary and cruel policies that do nothing to improve public safety.”
