LOS ANGELES — New data from the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge show that the second Trump administration has reshaped immigration enforcement and detention by aggressively expanding executive power and rapidly increasing Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests with the backing of Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has statutory authority to arrest and detain noncitizens believed to be removable under immigration law. The agency also manages the nation’s civil immigration detention system and is responsible for making custody determinations.
During the second Trump administration, immigration detention policies expanded and became broader and less discretionary, increasingly sweeping in people with no criminal convictions and, in some cases, individuals with legal immigration status.
The UCLA study used ICE administrative records and found that in the first eight months of the Trump administration, detentions and deportations disproportionately targeted noncriminal, law-abiding Latinos, contradicting claims that enforcement priorities focus on the “worst of the worst.”
According to UCLA, President Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which pledged mass deportation programs. The Department of Homeland Security also launched a national media campaign “exposing the heinous crimes of criminal illegal aliens and warning others to leave America,” according to Secretary Kristi Noem.
ICE’s expanded detention practices have increasingly diverged from a public-safety focus, instead emphasizing routine enforcement against individuals with no criminal records and holding them for longer periods, often in harsh conditions.
Media organizations and nongovernmental groups have repeatedly documented poor conditions in ICE detention facilities. During this period, deaths in custody rose sharply, with 2025 becoming the deadliest year in more than two decades.
The UCLA study relies on administrative records to examine key outcomes of ICE detention practices experienced by noncriminal Latinos arrested by ICE who have not committed crimes and are not facing criminal charges.
UCLA found that in 2025, the number of noncriminal Latinos entering detention each month increased sixfold during the first eight months of the Trump administration compared with the Biden administration.
Under the Biden administration in 2024, an average of about 900 detainees entered detention each month. Under Trump, that figure rose to roughly 6,000 per month. The surge in noncriminal detainees coincided with a dramatic increase in at-large arrests that disproportionately targeted Latino communities.
Most of the growth among noncriminal Latino detainees involved working-age adults ages 18 to 54. Between 2024 and 2025, the number of detainees ages 18 to 34 increased sevenfold, while those ages 35 to 54 increased by more than ninefold.
The number of minors grew only marginally between 2024 and 2025, from about 1,500 to fewer than 1,700, according to UCLA. Older adults, defined as age 55 and older, continued to make up a small share of detainees, with relatively few age 65 or older.
UCLA’s data showed that during the Trump period, nearly seven in 10 noncriminal Latino detainees were held for 15 days or longer, compared with four in 10 during the Biden period. The median length of stay ranged from one to three days under Biden but exceeded 25 days under Trump.
Noncriminal Latino detainees also faced a significantly higher risk of being relocated out of state under Trump. During the Trump period, 55% of noncriminal Latino detainees were transferred out of state, compared with 18% during the previous year.
Researchers attributed this increase to the need to house a rapidly growing detention population in facilities concentrated in Texas and the Southeast.
Overall, the UCLA analysis concludes that expanded detention practices harm immigrants, their families, and the broader society. Previous research has consistently found that heightened immigration enforcement has negative mental and physical health impacts on immigrant communities.
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