The last year has seen the number of Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers increase by 120%, leading to conflict and questions across the country.
In 2025, 43,305 ICE arrests were made. As of January 7, 2026, around 69,000 people remain in ICE detention. 52% had criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, and 5% of people convicted in ICE detention have been convicted of violent offenses. This translates to 752 non-citizens convicted of murder and 1,693 convicted of sexual assault. Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, said that the increase in ICE agents is for protection against domestic terrorists.
ICE’s annual budget is $78 billion. 10 years ago, the budget was less than $6 billion. This significant increase is largely due to President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Signed on July 4, 2025, the bill allocates $78 billion to ICE. White House border administrator Tom Homan in an interview with NPR said, “The more beds that we have, the more bad guys we arrest.”
Training for ICE agents has decreased from its prior 112 day in-house training center period to 47 days to honor President Trump as the 47th president of the United States, according to The Atlantic. The graduation requirements from the ICE academy include three written exams with a 70% score on enforcement laws; a physical abilities assessment and completed classes on physical techniques, first aid, firearms, driver training, conduct and efficiency. One cut made to the program was the five-week spanish language training program that required a 70% test score or above to graduate. This has been replaced with a $1.5 million technology with “robust translation services.”
Another change made for enforcement officers by the Trump administration is making the use of body cameras optional.
The beginning of ICE can be traced back to soon after 9/11. After the attacks, the Department of Homeland Security moved to pass the act for ICE in early 2002, before the organization was officially created in March 2003. The mission statement listed by ICE is to “Protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.”
ICE agents are not legally allowed to conduct a search without consent or probable cause – when the public has reasonable or trustworthy information to warrant that someone is committing a crime. This is defended by the Fourth Amendment, protecting all people on U.S. soil against unreasonable search and seizure.
In September, the Supreme Court ruled on Noem v. Vasquez, lifting the bar on ICE agents from racially profiling. This allowed the agents to use race, ethnicity, language and occupation as grounds for stopping and questioning people. The lift of the ban has a disproportionate impact on Latino communities. In a study done by UCLA in October, nine out of ten arrests made by ICE were found to be of a latino person. Other ethnic groups are also targeted in specific places; Somali immigrants, through Operation Metro Surge, are the primary target in Minnesota.
In December 2025, 2,000 ICE agents were deployed to Minneapolis, Minnesota. The city has been a capital of ICE brutality. On January 7, Renee Good was shot three times inside her vehicle by an ICE agent. Good was a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, mother of three, a wife and well loved community member whose murder was mourned with a vigil at her shooting site.
17 days later, 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by agents in Minneapolis on January 24. After attempting to stand between agents and two civilians, at least ten shots were fired into Pretti’s back within five seconds. Pretti was licensed to carry a gun in Minnesota, though video evidence shows he never pulled one out, with his hands visible in video footage.
Pretti’s shooting was nearly automatically recognized by the entire country as an act of injustice. An investigation was launched into the killing. Gregory Bovino, orchestrator of high-intensity immigration sweeps and arrests, was removed from his role as Border Patrol commander and reassigned.
Operation Midway Blitz is the name for the massive immigration surge in Chicago that began in September 2025. On September 12, a man was fatally shot by a federal immigration officer in Franklin Park during an arrest attempt. On September 19, protests began that were responded to with flash bangs, tear gas and rubber bullets by ICE. On September 30, agents (Border Patrol and FBI) raided a South Shore apartment complex overnight, where dozens were detained. Chicago Police Department Superintendent Larry Snelling told Chicagoans that one is putting themself in danger by following law enforcement around, and it is reasonable for officers to react to the threat of potential harm.
Detainees are brought to detention centers prior to deportation or resolving the case. Conditions reported by the National Immigrant Justice Center include overcrowding, unsanitary and inadequate food, physical and verbal abuse and lack of access to legal counsel and healthcare. Over 90% of ICE detention centers are run by private, for-profit companies.