Published 12/09/2025 09:08 | Edited 12/09/2025 09:16
The United States Immigration and Customs Service (ICE) detained more than 75,000 people without any criminal history in the first nine months of Donald Trump’s administration, according to data released this Sunday (7) by NBC News.
The numbers are part of the Deportation Data Project, at the University of California at Berkeley, which obtained the information through a lawsuit against the agency.
Between January 20 and October 15, the total number of arrests reached 220,000, which indicates that more than a third of the targets of migration operations had no prior record, despite the White House presenting the actions as initiatives focused on the most dangerous criminals.
The data corresponds only to arrests made by ICE and does not include the operations of the Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP), which this year mobilized teams in large urban centers such as Los Angeles.
The exclusion suggests that the number of immigrants without criminal histories detained by the government is even higher than previously known.
According to the survey, around 90% of those detained by ICE until mid-October were men, with a predominance of Mexicans, Guatemalans and Hondurans. Approximately 23,000 people have been classified in the voluntary deportation category, although it is unclear how many have already left the country.
The most extensive operations, carried out in Democratic cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC and Boston, registered proportions much higher than the national average: while the rate of detainees without any criminal charges hovers around 30% in the country
In Washington, for example, 84% of those arrested in federal raids had no prior record. In Illinois, the percentage reached 66% in the period analyzed. In all cases, the arrest rate of people with violent convictions remained below 5%.
The proportion of detainees with a criminal history fell from 46% in January to 28% in October, at the same time that the government expanded street actions following the Supreme Court decision in September, which authorized federal agents to use factors such as race, ethnicity, language and place of residence to carry out stops.
Civil rights organizations point out that the court, by validating the policy known as roving patrolsinstitutionalized racial profiling throughout the United States.
Since then, reports of arrests at schools, airports, courts, green card interviews and even street food stalls have multiplied. In Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles, residents report that agents appear masked, surround entire blocks and detain people for “foreign appearance” or for speaking Spanish.
The offensive on the streets has been accompanied by increasingly aggressive rhetoric from Trump himself. At a cabinet meeting last week, the president stated that “Somali are trash” and that migrants from “all Third World countries” should be barred.
He also suggested deporting anyone deemed “incompatible with Western civilization.” The speech was celebrated by aides including Vice President JD Vance and spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who described the moment as “epic.”
Verbal escalation accompanies broader administrative measures. Since the attack on two members of the National Guard in the federal capital on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday — attributed to an Afghan citizen, with no established motive — the Department of Homeland Security has suspended immigration applications from 19 countries.
The Citizenship and Immigration Service has reduced the validity period of work permits for asylum seekers from five years to 18 months.
Despite the security justifications, experts note that the changes had an immediate impact on reducing legal immigration. For Doris Meissner, former director of the immigration agency in the Clinton administration, “this is how you reduce legal immigration without changing the law.”
The guidelines adopted by Trump have been compared by historians to the nativism of the 1920s, when the Johnson-Reed Act established racial quotas that restricted entry to Jews, Italians, Asians and Africans.
For author Daniel Okrent, the central difference is that “the xenophobes of that period disguised their speech”, while the current government acts in an open and explicit way.
The expansion of immigration raids has changed the routine of North American citizens, including those with full citizenship.
Hundreds of reports gathered by community organizations and the press show people sleeping with their passports next to their beds, carrying birth certificates in their cars and avoiding public spaces for fear of arrest.
Despite the increase in operations, local authorities claim that the raids did not result in greater public safety.
In several states, mayors and community leaders report the disruption of services, a drop in the population’s confidence in reporting crimes and the emergence of “fear zones” in entire regions.
Source: vermelho.org.br
