Deportations in the United States increased fivefold during the first year of the current presidential administration, according to a UCLA-led report announced by the Deportation Data Project.
Immigration arrests — particularly those conducted in public settings — also surged nationwide, with overall arrests more than quadrupling compared with levels at the end of the previous administration, researchers found.
The increase was driven in part by a shift toward so-called “street arrests,” which rose by a factor of 11. Those arrests occur in neighborhoods, workplaces, immigration courts and during routine check-ins, rather than through transfers from jails or prisons, according to the report.
“We show that enforcement didn’t just surge in L.A., Chicago and Minneapolis,” Graeme Blair, co-director of the Deportation Data Project, said in a statement. “In fact, even at the peak of the Minneapolis surge, those arrests accounted for only 15% of nationwide street arrests.”
The dataset includes individual records of arrests, detentions and deportations from Oct. 1, 2022, through March 10, 2026. The information was obtained through Freedom of Information Act litigation and made publicly available, researchers said.
The report also found arrests of people without criminal convictions increased more than eightfold. Deportations of individuals without prior removal orders more than doubled.
“It’s well known that ICE has been pursuing a campaign of indiscriminate arrests, but it’s less well known that even as ICE has arrested more people who likely could win their cases and stay in the United States, arrests have been ending more often in deportation,” said David Hausman, project co-director and assistant professor of law at UC Berkeley. “One big reason is that detention is making people give up on their cases.”
The average number of people held daily rose from about 14,000 in late 2024 to roughly 57,000 by January 2026, according to researchers. As detention increased and release became more difficult, voluntary departures rose sharply, increasing 28-fold.
The report was led by UCLA and UC Berkeley Law scholars and attorneys well-versed in the Freedom of Information Act.