Most growth in ICE detention population immigrants with no criminal convictions : NPR
Officers of the Krome Man detention center A door leading to the American immigration and customs installation on May 24, 2025, in Miami.
Rebecca Blackwell / AP
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tilting legend
Rebecca Blackwell / AP
President Trump adopts a promised mass expulsion campaign to be the most important in American history. New data gives a clearer image of what it looks like: At least 56,000 immigrants are held in ice detention.
According to the expulsion data project, a group that collects immigration numbers, about half of the people in detention do not have criminal convictions. It is nearly 30,000 people in detention, without a criminal record – the group that has grown up in recent months.
“You listen to Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, they say things as if they leave the worst of the worst, the people who are murderers,” said Professor Graeme Blair of the UCLA, referring to the “ border ts ” of President Trump, and with the help of the Key White House Stephen Miller. “It’s just not what the data say people they really stop.”
During the first months of the Trump administration, the number of detentions was roughly the same as during the Biden administration. But in recent weeks, there has been pressure to hold more people, led by the recent objective of 3,000 ice arrests per day.
According to Professor Blair, one of the directors of the expulsion data project, the ice raids in Los Angeles marked a turning point: people without a criminal record were increasingly arrested. In fact, the NPR examination of ice data revealed that the number of people without Criminal convictions in detention have almost doubled since May – more than any other group of prisoners.
NPR contacted the Trump administration to comment and received no response. At a press conference last week, President and Prosecutor General Pam Bondi said the emphasis is on violent criminals. But there have also been coherent messages from government officials warning that there will be arrests of collateral immigration, and that being in the United States without legal status is a sufficient reason for detention and expulsion.
For many, this policy has noted an upheaval of decades of life, community and businesses in the United States, this is the case of Pastor Maurio Ambrocio du Guatemala. Ambrocio had lived in the United States without legal status for 30 years. In addition to his religious work, he had a landscaping company. He had no criminal record.
Ambrocio had what is called a return stay, which forced him to register with immigration officials at least once a year, let them know that he was employed and had not committed any crime. He had been doing this for 13 years.
A few months ago, during a regular recording, he was arrested and put into detention. Last night, he was expelled to Guatemala.
NPR followed the case of Ambrocio closely and addressed members of his community. Several of his neighbors said they had a broken heart to discover the news of Ambrocio’s detention. Some of them were Trump voters who expressed their concern about the nature of this immigration repression.
“I am not necessarily comfortable with the place where we are right now,” said Greg Johns, who lives in front of the Ambrocio family. He voted for Trump, but feels disappointed. “You are going to take a community leader, a pastor, a man who works hard … What, do you need a number that day?”
Johns is not alone. There are indications that American opinions on immigration control change. While last year, a Gallup survey revealed that 55% of Americans wanted less immigration, a recent NPR survey with PBS News and Marist shows that 52% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s current approach to the application of immigration.
