Why this matters:
The Trump administration has promised to deport “the worst of the worst including gang members, murderers, and rapists,” but new data show that 58% of those arrested in San Diego and Imperial counties had no criminal background.
Empower San Diego with trusted immigration reporting today.
Give $10
Immigration authorities in Southern California are increasingly targeting immigrants without criminal histories as overall arrests have soared into the thousands this year.
Through mid-October in San Diego and Imperial counties, federal immigration agents made almost 5,000 arrests. More than half of those arrested had no criminal histories, only immigration violations. The newly released government data reveal how President Donald Trump’s mass deportation ambitions – and the surge of federal resources toward that goal – are playing out on the ground.
The data was provided by ICE in response to a public records request by the Deportation Data Project, a group of academic researchers and attorneys, and analyzed by inewsource.
While the Trump administration has claimed to prioritize threats to public safety and those they call “the worst of the worst,” the data points to another reality. More than 2,800 people arrested by immigration authorities this year have no criminal convictions or pending charges. Those people make up 58% of the total arrests in San Diego and Imperial counties.
Generally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has accelerated monthly arrests, and at the same time, they have also arrested a higher proportion of immigrants without criminal histories.
A spokesperson for ICE did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
On average, ICE in San Diego arrested a higher share of people – nearly twice as much – without criminal histories than ICE across the country. ICE was also more likely to arrest people without criminal histories in San Diego than the rest of California.
According to news reports, federal agents in San Diego have arrested immigrants outside of courtrooms downtown, at Home Depots in Encinitas and in San Marcos as well as near public schools and in residential neighborhoods across the county.
In one case from June, officers handcuffed two U.S. citizen teens after throwing flashbangs into their home and detaining their parents. More recently, agents have made arrests during green card appointments for immigrants on the cusp of securing permanent legal residency.
The arrests have sparked outrage from immigrant advocates who say the government, acting through masked federal agents in plainclothes, is detaining people who have lived in the U.S. for decades and disappearing them into an opaque detention and deportation system.
In response, local elected officials across San Diego County have been grappling with their own role in immigration enforcement – or limiting it.
The San Diego City Council voted in October to further restrict the police department’s ability to collaborate with ICE. Smaller cities across the county, including Vista, have adopted similar so-called “sanctuary” policies in recent months. School districts have discussed measures to protect and educate students on their rights.
The surge in arrests is also contributing to a record number of immigrants in detention: more than 66,000 across the country, according to CBS News. And far fewer are getting out on bond because of changes reducing the number of immigrants who are eligible to be released.
As of mid-November, the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego is holding an average of 1,460 people. The Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico has an average of about 640 detainees.
So far this year, ICE officers made the most arrests – about 1,400 – in September. That’s almost double the arrests ICE officers made in all of 2024 under former President Joe Biden’s administration. Arrests in the first half of October were on pace to match September, according to the data.
The jump comes months after Trump signed into law a massive spending package that set aside more than $170 billion toward immigration enforcement over the next four years. Immigration agencies are on a hiring spree to triple ICE’s workforce and add thousands more agents to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The Trump administration has also tapped officials from federal agencies that aren’t normally responsible for enforcing immigration laws, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Border Patrol, an agency within the Department of Homeland which is normally focused on the border regions, has also taken an unusual role in internal immigration enforcement.
Gregory Bovino, the former chief patrol agent of the El Centro Sector in California, is now leading immigration operations across the country. He’s been seen in Los Angeles, Chicago, Ill., and Charlotte, N.C. and has been named in multiple lawsuits alleging constitutional violations by agents.
Meanwhile, unauthorized migrant crossings at the southern border are near record lows. Border Patrol reported about 1,130 crossings along California’s border with Mexico in the month of October.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.