27-06-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump says he's deporting ‘the worst of the worst.' Here's what California ICE data really shows
A Chronicle analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest data, released by the UC-affiliated Deportation Data Project, appears to contradict a persistent claim by the Trump administration that its efforts to deport undocumented immigrants targets 'the worst of the worst.'
ICE arrested about 1,730 people in the San Francisco 'area of responsibility' in just over five months from the start of 2025 to June 10, a 70% increase from the final six months of the Biden administration. The area covers a wide swath of California — Kern County and the counties north of it — as well as Hawaii, Guam and Saipan. The Chronicle's analysis excluded arrests that occurred outside of California.
While the number of arrests of convicted criminals did grow, the number of arrests of people suspected only of immigration-related violations — or those whose charges were still pending — grew much faster. In December, about 10% of the people ICE arrested had no criminal convictions. That share jumped to nearly 30% in January, and then about 40% in May. Data from the first 10 days of June showed that more than half of the people arrested didn't have criminal convictions.
Those convictions ranged broadly, from homicide and sexual assault to marijuana possession and reckless driving. Being in the U.S. without legal documentation is a civil offense rather than a crime, despite Trump administration officials labeling unauthorized migrants as 'criminals.' Many people arrested by ICE were in the process of seeking asylum or other relief.
While some of the people ICE arrests are allowed to avoid detention while they wait for their court date, many are booked into a detention center or deported.
National data compiled by the Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University indicates that the number of people detained by ICE — excluding those arrested by Customs and Border Protection — nearly doubled from about 14,900 on Jan. 26 to 28,900 on April 6.
The largest relative increase in detentions was also among people with no criminal convictions nationally, jumping from 900 in late January to more than 5,000 in March. The number soon surged again as ICE continued its mass deportation efforts, nearing 11,800 as of mid-June, compared with 14,500 detainees with convictions.
Nationally, ICE arrests surged after President Donald Trump took office, though they remain far below Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller's goal of 3,000 arrests a day. Researchers and immigration advocates previously warned that setting such a high minimum would require ICE and Customs and Border Protection to begin arresting people who aren't suspected of the serious crimes the Trump administration said it was focusing on.
Those orders have resulted in chaotic immigration raids in Southern California, which mostly resulted in arrests of people without criminal convictions, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Austin Kocher, an immigration researcher at Syracuse University, argued in a recent blog post that the Trump administration's lofty goals may be intentionally impossible.
'The goal is not to solve a real problem, but to manufacture an ever-expanding crisis that justifies ever-expanding unregulated power,' Kocher said.
