Trump’s Ineffective Use of ICE Detainers: Numbers Jump but Few Produce Results

Published Apr 14, 2025

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has long claimed that detainers, often called "immigration holds," are an essential tool needed to apprehend and deport individuals not authorized to remain in the United States. Detainers seek to transfer custody to ICE of specific persons that local, state and federal law enforcement agencies (LEAs) currently have in their custody. The detainer request asks that the LEA hold the individual in custody for up to 48 hours beyond their scheduled release to allow time for ICE to send an enforcement officer to that facility to take the person into ICE’s custody.[1]

Using detainer-by-detainer ICE data covering the first 29 days of the current Trump administration (January 20, 2025 – February 17, 2025), this report examines whether detainers are effectively being used to implement President Trump’s goal of stepped-up immigration arrests and mass deportations. As this report went to press, ICE released in response to TRAC’s long-pending FOIA requests case-by-case detainer data which extended coverage through March 18, 2025.[2] Some preliminary results from this data have been added to the report.[3]

Detainers Jump While Individuals Taken into Custody Plummet

ICE detainer-by-detainer data recorded an immediate and sharp increase in detainers issued – daily detainers issued jumped by 72 percent. The average daily number issued during these first 29 days since Trump assumed the presidency rose to 654 compared to just 380 daily detainers issued during the same 29 days in 2024 under Biden.

This increase in Trump’s detainer usage has continued. The average daily number of detainers issued rose from 654 during the first 29 days to 715 during the subsequent 29 days (through March 18, 2025).

The increased usage of detainers was not unexpected. TRAC previously reported Trump’s detainer usage had been 50 percent higher when comparing the first Trump administration (FY 2017-2020) to Biden’s period in office (FY 2021-2024). See: Targeting of ICE Detainers: Biden and Trump Administration.

Issuance of a detainer doesn’t automatically result in the person being taken into custody for a variety of reasons. During the first Trump administration, however, ICE assumed custody of the person being sought in more than six out of every ten detainers it prepared, or 62 percent. It was 65 percent during the Biden years. So far in the current administration, ICE case-by-case detainer data indicate that ICE has taken the individual sought into custody relatively infrequently. In fact, ICE records that only 14 percent were taken into custody after the issuance of a detainer.[4] See Figure 1.

In addition, while news reports often feature deportations that have taken place shortly after an individual is in custody, ICE recorded that only 1.6 percent of the detainers ICE has issued have thus far resulted in actual deportations.

ICE did not release any information that might explain why the number of individuals taken into custody precipitously dropped. Indeed, while ICE cranked up the daily number of detainers it sent out, fewer actual persons were picked up daily from LEAs and transferred to ICE custody compared with Trump’s first term in office. See Figure 1 above.

With such a rapid rise in detainer issuances there might be insufficient coordination between ICE personnel who sent detainers out and the particular ICE offices responsible for traveling to the LEA to actually pick up the person being targeted by the detainer. After all, it takes relatively little time to prepare and issue detainers as compared with the staff time needed to actually physically travel to that LEA and take the person being sought into custody. ICE has already admitted that it was unable to sustain its initial stepped-up immigration arrests more generally because the agency did not have the time needed to plan and coordinate arrests. See February 15, 2025, Washington Post report.

While this administration emphasizes that it wants to pressure so-called sanctuary locations to cooperate in mass arrests, reports where a detainer was issued and the LEA refused to cooperate have not generally been highlighted. Further, in the data ICE released the agency also failed to include the records, if any, it had on detainers which LEAs refused to honor. This is despite the fact that ICE databases contain a field which is designed to record this information.[5] However, as we will see in a following section examining state-by-state and city-by-city numbers, it does appear that for whatever reason states and cities did vary a great deal in the proportion of detainers LEAs received where ICE took the individual into custody.

To the extent ICE is issuing detainers willy-nilly and doesn’t follow through and travel to the LEA to take the person into custody, this administration is unnecessarily burdening LEAs who receive these requests for immigration holds. In addition, the targets of these detainers may also be adversely impacted if the LEA kept individuals locked up because it had received ICE detainers when the local authority itself had no reason to hold the individuals.

Most Targets of Detainers Had No Criminal Convictions

In general, individuals with a criminal conviction made up a surprisingly small number of those targeted by a detainer. Out of 17,972 detainers issued between January 20 and February 17, just 28 percent had any prior conviction. Of these, despite this administration’s rhetoric, only 30 detainers were targeted at convicted rapists and just 65 at murderers.[6]

In general, where a conviction was recorded, it tended to be for a less serious offense. The most frequent conviction was for drunk driving, followed by “other traffic offenses.” The category of “miscellaneous assaults” which excluded serious assaults was in third place. Convictions for illegal entry followed by convictions for illegal reentry were in fourth and fifth place. Together these five offenses were classified by ICE as the most serious criminal conviction recorded and made up one third or 34 percent of recorded convictions.

Nationality

From January 20 to February 17, a total of just 29 days, Individuals from over 150 countries were targeted by detainers. No nationality appeared to have been a particular focus of these recent detainers. The nationality of individuals on whom a detainer had been prepared largely followed their population levels in this country, at least to the extent of available estimates of the unauthorized population. It did appear that individuals from India received relatively few detainers compared with their numbers now in the U.S.[7] Similarly, few Canadians or Ukrainians were targets of these detainers.

During the first 29 days of the current Trump administration, Mexicans made up 44 percent of all detainers. Citizens of Guatemala were in second place making up 11 percent of detainers, while Hondurans were in third place with 10 percent. Table 1 below shows the top ten nationalities targeted with detainers during the first 29 days of the current Trump administration.

If we compare Table 1 with the nationality makeup of detainers issued during the first Trump administration or in the Biden administration two differences can be seen. Current detainers reflect actual changes in the nationality makeup of more recently arriving immigrants -- declines in immigrants from Mexico and increased numbers from other countries[8] including Venezuela, Columbia and nations outside the Americas.

Targeting of ICE Detainers: States and Cities Receiving Detainers

Law enforcement agencies in every state received detainers during the initial days of the new Trump administration, although detainer numbers varied from just a single detainer sent to LEAs in Vermont and Alaska versus thousands sent to LEAs in more populous states. Texas received the largest number, followed by California. Florida and Georgia were in third and fourth place. When these four states are added together, they accounted for half of all detainers issued. See Table 2.

The number of detainers resulting in an ICE official taking the immigrant into custody also varied widely. Slightly over half (54%) of immigrants targeted with detainers sent to North Dakota LEAs were taken into custody by ICE. The Virgin Islands also saw 50 percent taken into custody. Only four other locations had a third or higher proportion of immigrants with detainers taken into custody. These were South Dakota (47%), Montana (44%), District of Columbia (43%) and Arizona (37%). However, of these, only Arizona received more than a few detainers to begin with.

At the other extreme, nine states had 1 percent or no immigrants who were targeted with detainers taken into custody. Of these, only four (4) – New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Nebraska -- received significant numbers of detainers. See Table 2.

Table 3 lists the top 25 cities receiving the most detainers. Houston, Texas topped this list, followed by Miami, Florida. Phoenix, Arizona was in third place. Los Angeles, California had fallen to fourth place from first place during the previous Trump administration. Texas cities of Dallas, San Antonio and Austin were in fifth, sixth, and seventh place, respectively.

In general, Texas and Florida locations were more frequently targeted, while California cities fell in their rankings when these initial days of the Trump administration are compared with city rankings from the first Trump administration. See Figure 2 and Table 2 in previous September 2024 TRAC detainer report for comparisons of the rankings during the previous Trump and Biden administrations.

Current Trump Administration Use of Detainers Not Effectively Managed

ICE’s long-standing claims that detainers "are an essential tool needed to apprehend and deport individuals not authorized to remain in the U.S.” has not proven to be supported by the actual results of detainer use during the initial days of the new Trump Administration. Often, ICE did not follow through and take these individuals into custody. In addition, those immigrants it did target with detainers were not generally the serious criminals who ICE claimed were the reason stepped-up immigration enforcement was so essential.