Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained a record number of illegal immigrants as the Trump administration expands its deportation effort.
At the direction of President Donald Trump, ICE initially prioritized detention of those in the country illegally who were suspected of committing heinous crimes such as rape, murder, and sex trafficking. However, federal agents have expanded their gaze beyond such targets in recent weeks to arrest those without legal status working in industries heavily reliant on migrant labor.
Recommended Stories
- ICE says it arrested 11 Iranian illegal immigrants as Trump warns of sleeper cells in US
- 'Fire up the deportation planes': DHS welcomes Supreme Court ruling on third countries
- Noem approves money for Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center
ICE’s expanded raids are reflected in the latest internal government data, obtained by CBS News, which shows that arrests have reached a historic high under Trump’s second term, with 59,000 detainees held in facilities across the country, breaking the record of 55,000 set under his first term.
The statistics indicate that nearly half of those currently detained by ICE lack a criminal record. The data follows hard-liners in the Trump administration, including White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, who has pushed ICE to more than triple the number of daily arrests.
Amid pressure to increase arrest rates dramatically, ICE has ramped up arrests of workers in the agriculture and hospitality industries despite Trump expressing sympathy for the migrants deemed essential and promising the country would soon see an executive order addressing the effects of his deportation crackdown on the farm and hotel industries. Millions of such individuals who entered the country under the Biden administration’s relaxed border policies are now being told to self-deport or be forcibly removed under Trump.
Industry leaders nationwide have warned that the crackdown could have a disastrous effect on the economy, saying that the loss of migrant labor is a “very serious issue” that is already having a “direct impact.”
“Restaurants are not a nice to have, they are part of a critical feeding infrastructure,” Emily Williams Knight, CEO of the Texas Restaurant Association, said at a recent press conference. “There is a massive economic impact when people are not coming to work, they’re not spending in their communities, and restaurants aren’t generating the revenue that’s required for investment back to the community.”
Local jails holding ICE detainees across the country have struggled to keep up with the arrests, as federal data shows ICE’s detention level is at over 140% capacity, per CBS. Nationwide, ICE detentions have surged by roughly 25% since Trump took office in January, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Prisons in Georgia are among those grappling with crowded holding facilities, with daily inmate totals at Stewart Detention Center standing at 1,828 despite having a capacity of only 1,752 detainees, per the outlet.
“The people actually try to fight to get a bed because 30 people just sleeping on the concrete floor, so the situation there is crazy,” Jose Arias-Tovar, a recently released detainee at the jail, said in comments that were backed up by local immigrant support groups. “Two toilets, two showers for many persons. You got people, they take a shower at 3 a.m. because they don’t have time to do it in the day.”
DHS TELLS ICE TO TARGET FARM AND HOTEL WORKERS AGAIN
Tovar added, “They don’t have enough food. … It’s too much people now.”
The prison’s operators denied that food-deprived detainees are being forced to sleep on concrete floors even as they confirmed the inmate population numbers.