Immigrant arrests and deportations in New York City significantly increase, according to recent data

In a recent report, the City of Chicago has revealed an alarming increase in violent deportations of immigrants in the New York City region, as communicated about immigration enforcement actions and their impacts. The city administration obtained this information through observations of enforcement patterns and public reports about operations like the "Operation Midway Blitz" initiated by Homeland Security.

The data, provided by the Deportation Data Project and covering arrests through late July 2025, shows that from January 20, 2021, through July 29, 2021, approximately 3,300 immigrants were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in New York. This surge in arrests and deportations is partly due to a push by the agency to step up enforcement at local immigration courthouses, particularly at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, where immigrants are taken into custody after immigration court proceedings.

Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, stated that ICE officers find it easier to arrest people in courthouses. The data obtained by the Deportation Data Project reveals that immigrants with no criminal backgrounds are becoming a growing share of those arrested.

The Trump administration has set a nationwide goal of 3,000 immigration arrests a day as part of a broad immigration crackdown. In President Donald Trump's second term, arrests and deportations by federal immigration agents in the New York City area have significantly increased. So far in 2021, ICE has already deported more than three times the number of immigrant New Yorkers who were removed in all of 2020.

Interestingly, the number of arrests in the mentioned period is a 56% increase compared to the same period in the previous year. The Deportation Data Project, a group of lawyers and academics who obtain immigration enforcement data through Freedom of Information requests and publish the data to promote transparency, covers arrests made by the ICE New York City field office in the city and surrounding counties, including Dutchess, Nassau, Putnam, Suffolk, Sullivan, Orange, Rockland, and Westchester.

The increase in ICE arrests in the New York City area became particularly noticeable in early June 2021, compared to the same period in 2024. This trend underscores the need for continued vigilance and advocacy in protecting the rights of immigrants in the region.