Many detentions were due to changes in federal rules that stripped immigrants of legal status. More than two-thirds had no criminal record.
ICE agents arrest workers along Elmwood Avenue in November.
ICE arrests of migrants across upstate New York more than quadrupled last year following Donald Trump’s return to office.
A total of 3,722 people were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement between January 20, 2025, and January 21 of this year. That compares to 787 arrests in 2024.
The Trump administration has said repeatedly that it’s targeting only “the worst of the worst.” But federal data analyzed by Investigative Post shows that less than one-third of those arrested in upstate had a criminal record. Of those, half were already behind bars — agents merely picked up their targets from a prison or jail.
Rather, the spike in arrests is due, in part, to the federal government changing the rules on migrants who were living in the country legally, enabling agents to detain them.
Slightly more than half of those arrested by ICE last year — 1,971 people — were in the midst of the asylum process that, generally, allows migrants to live and work in the country legally without danger of arrest. The Trump administration, however, has changed numerous policies, stripping migrants of protections and resulting in their arrests while their cases wind through the courts.
In 2024, under President Joe Biden, 78 percent of those arrested in upstate had exhausted their legal options to remain in the country and were issued final deportation orders. Under Trump, just 47 percent of arrestees had final deportation orders.
“We’ve seen the Trump administration change the rules on immigrants drastically,” said Mario Bruzzone, vice president of policy for the New York Immigration Coalition. “They have really focused, and really driven, the mass deportation agenda by focusing on everyday immigrants.”
Despite the sharp increase, the number of arrests in upstate New York ranks last among ICE’s 26 field offices nationally, accounting for just 1 percent of 340,122 made during Trump’s first year back in office.
Still, the arrests represent a sharp increase over years past, Investigative Post found. Across the eight counties of Western New York, arrests jumped from 464 in 2024 under Biden to 1,489 under Trump — a 220 percent increase. Nearly nine in ten arrested under Biden had criminal records or were already imprisoned, the vast majority at Wende Correctional Facility east of Buffalo.
Further examination of the Western New York numbers show that of the nearly 1,500 arrested:
More than two-thirds were native to Mexico or Latin American counties.
Two-thirds of all arrestees have since been deported.
Nearly three-quarters were picked up in a raid, traffic stop or on the street. According to observers, these arrests often involve agents in an unmarked vehicle demanding proof of citizenship and spiriting arrestees away quickly.
The vast majority of those arrested in Western New York ended up at the ICE detention center in Batavia, which has been overcrowded for months.
“What we saw ICE do this past year in Western New York is devastating,” said Assembly Member Jonathan Rivera, who noted the mass arrests could harm the local economy.
“We will have problems in health care because we will lose workers. We will have a problem in construction because we will lose workers. We’ll have problems in our service industry.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the agency “has been delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists.”
“We will continue to deliver on the President’s promise to make America safe again,” the spokesperson added.
Parsing the numbers
The data — released by lawyers and academics with the Deportation Data Project — is the most comprehensive look yet at Trump’s immigration crackdown. Data for ICE’s Buffalo office covers 48 counties in upstate, including Western New York. Excluded are the state’s remaining 14 counties in Long Island, New York City and those immediately north and northwest of the city.
The ICE arrest data is an undercount of those affected by the immigration crackdown. It does not include, for example, an unknown but significant number of arrests made by Border Patrol agents or other agencies involved in immigration enforcement.
Detention data offers a slightly clearer view of the crackdown. Most of those arrested are initially sent to the federal detention center in Batavia, where the population last year was double the number of ICE arrests. Batavia housed 7,300 detainees last year, compared to nearly 3,400 over the course of 2024.
Additionally, the data shows that for the first time other facilities, including Border Patrol stations and local jails, were used to hold migrants last year. Some 300 were booked into the Border Patrol station in the Town of Tonawanda, while another 475 were held at the Allegany and Niagara county jails. Niagara County Sheriff Michael Filicetti, a Republican, has since announced he would limit his agency’s cooperation with ICE, detaining only migrants accused of crimes.
The data shows that ICE last year also stepped up its involvement in immigration enforcement at the bridges between Western New York and Canada. While U.S. Customs and Border Protection typically operate those sites, ICE made 78 arrests at the bridges last year. None were recorded in 2024.
It took the Trump administration several months to ramp up its immigration operation. ICE under Biden averaged 130 arrests per month at its peak in 2023. It took until March last year for Trump’s ICE to beat that rate. Since June, it has averaged 385 arrests monthly.
Latinos hit hardest
The data shows nearly two-thirds of those arrested last year across upstate were Latinos from countries including Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala and Venezuela. Most of them lived in or near urban areas like Buffalo, Rochester or Syracuse.
Ecuadorians were arrested more than anyone. Last year, 875 were arrested, compared with 96 in 2024 and 170 in 2023.
Mexicans, too, have been a target. Last year, 497 were arrested, compared to 144 in 2024.
Ecuadorians and Mexicans also topped the list of those arrested in Western New York’s eight counties.
Alberto Cappas, publisher of Buffalo Latino Village, a monthly newspaper, said the community wasn’t adequately prepared for Trump’s crackdown.
“We got caught with our pants down,” he said. “I knew it was gonna happen. My concern is that the community [did] not know that [it was] going to happen.”
The different nationalities, Cappas said, aren’t sufficiently interacting with each other. They ought to, he said, but many people are simply living day to day, trying to survive.
“Things are not going to get better, they’re going to get worse. We’re trying to alert the community. There’s a storm coming and we have to be prepared for that.”
Arrests continue
The data shows arrests have not slowed in the first months of 2026. Through March 10, 834 have been arrested across upstate. If that pace holds, arrests for this year will top 4,300 — more than last year’s 3,722.
A lawsuit filed last week in federal court in New York City offers a recent example: In late January, a Latino couple living in Buffalo was arrested in the parking lot of a Walmart in Cheektowaga.
“Immigration, Immigration. Let me see your papers,” an agent shouted at the couple as they were getting into their Hyundai, the lawsuit states.
The husband and wife, known by their initials FRP and RCR in the lawsuit, presented the agent with their work authorization, social security and state ID cards. Both have active asylum cases.
“Before he looked at the documents, [the agent] told them that they were detained and not to make a scene,” the lawsuit alleges. “He spoke on a radio device in English and told … RCR and FRP that they were “illegal.”
The agent had no warrants for their arrest.
The couple was detained separately, with RCR, the wife, sent to an ICE detention center in Louisiana while FRP, the husband, was sent to Batavia. Both suffered health complications in lockup.
In Louisiana, the wife, who is 55, “contracted COVID-19, developed an ear infection, a tooth infection and a gastrointestinal condition, with blood in her stool,” the lawsuit states. “The agents at the Louisiana facility did not provide [the wife] with a change of clothes or allow her to bathe. She had to sit in soiled underwear for three days.”
With her asylum case pending, ICE released her on $25,000 bond after she’d been detained for a month.
In Batavia, the lawsuit alleges, ICE withheld thyroid medication from the husband. The lawsuit claims agents told the 63-year-old they would only provide him medicine if he agreed to be deported.
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“Agents [also] did not allow FRP to shower or brush his teeth, and they did not give him any water,” the lawsuit claims further. “When [he] asked for water, the agents told him to drink from the toilet.”
He, too, was eventually released after he posted bond.
Along with six other plaintiffs, the couple is suing federal immigration agencies asserting they were racially profiled and illegally targeted. The lawsuit says the couple fears they’ll be profiled and arrested again.
An ICE spokesperson did not return a request for comment on the lawsuit.
posted 29 minutes ago – April 14, 2026