Immigration Prosecutions Jump in March 2025

Published Jun 3, 2025

Immigration criminal prosecutions jumped in March 2025. The latest available case-by-case data indicate U.S. Attorneys charged 4,550 defendants with immigration offenses in U.S. District Courts in March, up 36.6 percent over February when 3,332 defendants were charged. See Figure 1.

Seven out of ten referrals for criminal immigration prosecutions originated with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) while the remaining three out of ten were referred from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Immigration convictions also made up the majority of all federal court criminal convictions. Out of a total of 10,965 federal convictions for all types of offenses in March 2025, federal convictions for immigration offenses made up 57.5 percent.

Immigration prosecutions, however, remain far below the highs they reached during the first Trump administration. See Figure 2. During FY 2019 the annual number of criminal prosecutions was just under 120,000, and monthly totals were frequently over 10,000 per month under Trump. This was initially the result of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ April 6, 2018 announcement of a “zero tolerance policy” for those who then illegally crossed our border. See TRAC July 2018 and December 2018 reports.

This report is based on case-by-case records from the Department of Justice ordered released each month to TRAC after successful and lengthy litigation under the Freedom of Information Act. In addition to a TRACmeter on the latest criminal filings at the top of our home page which links to a free monthly bulletin tracking criminal immigration prosecutions, Quick Facts on criminal immigration prosecutions also are published. TRACfed (a subscription service) linked off of our home page at tracreports.org allows the public to drill into these data for each federal judicial district by lead charge and lead investigative agency referrals, declinations, prosecutions and convictions.

Prosecution Trends by Lead Charge

Not all immigration offenses saw increased use in March 2025. In fact, prosecutions for harboring under Title 8 Section 1324 of the U.S. Code actually fell by 13 percent. In February, there were a total of 335 prosecutions for harboring. This fell to 290 in March. Under former President Biden, harboring criminal prosecutions had ramped up at the beginning of 2021. They had risen to around 600 in September 2022.

Harboring has been used broadly to prosecute not only people who provide physical shelter or help immigrants illegally enter the country, but also people who provide other forms of aid or assistance in evading law enforcement. Despite press announcements of occasional suits, prosecutions in general during the current Trump administration for harboring are substantially down from Biden’s numbers.

The biggest jump in immigration prosecutions occurred for illegal entry under 8 U.S.C. 1325. In March 2025 there were 1,660 suits filed — almost double the 822 prosecutions filed in February. Illegal entry is a petty criminal offense. In the past beyond deportation, convictions resulted in little if any jail time.

In earlier periods illegal entry was the most frequent federal charge. However, with the partial government shutdown which occurred because of the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals charged for illegal entry plummeted. Further, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic during the first Trump administration, border officials turned migrants immediately away at the border allegedly for public health reasons (under Title 42 of the U.S. Code) rather than for immigration reasons (under Title 8 of the U.S. Code). As a result, migrants who would normally have been prosecuted in federal criminal court for immigration violations were turned away earlier in the process, cutting off the flow of migrants into the prosecution pipeline. This drove down immigration prosecutions overall. See TRAC June 2024 report.

The largest component in March 2025 was for criminal prosecutions for illegal reentry under Title 8 U.S.C. 1326. In March 2,482 prosecutions were filed — up from 2,062 in February. Thus, these grew by 420 suits – only half the growth shown for illegal entry prosecutions.

While illegal reentry is a more serious offense and can result in significant prison sentences, in the past it was often pled down to illegal entry. This had been particularly common for prosecutions in Arizona. See TRAC June 2014 report.

Conclusion

March 2025 is just a single month. Since President Trump assumed office last January, the primary emphasis has been on increasing immigration civil arrests and removals. These levels have not met this administration’s targets let alone substantially increased from civil arrest and removal levels under the previous Biden administration. Whether this administration will also decide to increase its use of criminal prosecutions that also would require increased assignment of its staffing is yet unclear.