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. 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.

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 and are below the levels under former President Biden. Harboring has been used broadly to prosecute people who provide physical shelter or help immigrants illegally enter the country.

The biggest jump in immigration prosecutions occurred for illegal entry under 8 U.S.C. 1325. Illegal entry is a petty criminal offense and generally results in little if any jail time. The largest component in March 2025 was for criminal prosecutions for illegal reentry under Title 8 U.S.C. 1326, but its growth was lower. While illegal reentry is a more serious offense and can result in significant prison sentences. However, in the past it was often pled down to illegal entry.

Some caution is needed in reading too much into prosecutions for a single month. Since President Trump assumed office last January, the primary emphasis has been on increasing immigration civil arrests and removals. Whether this administration will increase its use of criminal prosecutions that could compete with available staffing is yet unclear.

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. 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.