Throughout 2025 and into the first few weeks of this year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported an increasing number of immigrants in its custody. Then the lights went out.
ICE has delayed releasing critical data that allows the public to track many aspects of immigrant detention since the partial government shutdown began more than six weeks ago, violating a Congressional mandate to release this data twice a month.
The agency last updated its numbers on Feb. 12, just days before a partial shutdown began due to funding from its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security. This has one of the three longest delays between releases.
After previous negotiations broke down, Congressional Republicans on April 1 announced a plan to end the partial shutdown by funding all of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol, but a deal was still not finalized as of April 2.
DHS hasn’t updated some dashboards since President Donald Trump took office in 2025. As such, this data, ICE detention statistics, has become an important tool to see how new immigration enforcement policies are unfolding. This shows how many people are being detained, what kind of facilities they are being held in, and for how long.
“People may be underestimating how useful this ICE detention data is. This is just one part of the larger mystery of how DHS conducts enforcement,” said Ariel Luis Soto, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “But it gives us an important sense of the population of detainees.”
This dataset provides a way to cross-check whether agents are targeting people with no criminal record. It also provides information about detainees to help immigration advocates challenge detention conditions.
USA TODAY combined all of the spreadsheets available on the Wayback Machine going back to 2021 with current data on ICE’s website, as well as several additional datasets, to show how things have changed under the Trump administration and since.
Data reveals ICE is detaining people at record levels. The detention population reached more than 70,000 as of the end of January, an increase of about 80% from a year ago.
But significant changes are occurring, not only in the number of people detained, but also in who is targeted. Illegal border crossing attempts at the U.S.-Mexico border plummeted at the end of the Biden administration and declined further under Trump, but enforcement efforts have shifted domestically.
This means ICE agents are casting a wider net with controversial tactics to meet high arrest quotas, such as arresting people for immigration hearings, workplace raids, and racial profiling.
As a result, the proportion of detainees without criminal records rapidly increased, accounting for approximately 42% of all detainees at the end of the first year of the administration. This number was 6% a year ago. Some of these immigrants are violating only immigration laws, such as overstaying their visas or re-entering the country after being deported, and some are awaiting immigration hearings.
“This used to be our most reliable way to achieve data transparency on ICE detention, but now we have been flying in the dark for a month,” Luis Soto said.
Historically, it has been published approximately every two weeks, with some delays at the end of the year when the final report is produced. Luis Soto said the current delays are significant.
A DHS spokesperson denounced the closure in an emailed statement, saying DHS and ICE “do not have the resources” to release new detention data. The agency did not respond to questions about when it plans to make this dataset or other immigration dashboards it stopped updating before the shutdown. He also did not say whether he would use funding already authorized in President Trump’s signature bill, which gives DHS more than $170 billion.
“When you have a government shutdown, even a partial shutdown like we’re experiencing right now, reporting is delayed,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), the top Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees funding for the Department of Homeland Security. “Without a funding agreement, these requirements lapse.” Cuellar was pardoned by President Trump in 2025 for federal corruption charges.
Pressure mounted on the administration following the shooting deaths of two Americans in Minnesota, which ultimately led to turmoil at the department, including the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in favor of newly confirmed Markwayne Mullin.
Before going into spring recess, lawmakers were debating a plan to end the government shutdown that began in mid-February, with Democrats demanding reforms to ICE officers before putting money into the parent agency’s annual budget, including requiring masks, banning raids without a judicial warrant and expanding the use of body-worn cameras. Negotiations are continuing in the House and Senate, but no agreement has yet been reached.
Meanwhile, immigration enforcement continues, as President Trump’s signature bill gave ICE about $75 billion in 2025. Much of this funding will likely go towards hiring additional deportees and expanding the detention facility network.
Detaining people’s records requires more facilities to store them. ICE is opening new detention centers across the country. All but five states have one. As of February 5, ICE reported holding immigrants in 220 facilities, roughly double the number at the beginning of 2025. This includes local prisons, which are sometimes used to hold immigrants.
Recently, ICE has been purchasing warehouses around the country and converting them into detention centers, but has yet to actually equip them or detain anyone. The agency has spent more than $1 billion so far, USA TODAY previously reported. Many site plans face community resistance. In one Georgia town, local authorities shut off water and sewage to a warehouse and removed legal barricades. A federal judge has ordered a moratorium on construction at the Maryland site.
Although detention is intended to be non-punitive, advocates and lawyers have criticized conditions in these facilities, including lack of medical care, exposure to extreme heat, and unsanitary conditions.
From January 2025 to March 2026, ICE reported 46 deaths in its custody. Of these, 14 occurred in the first quarter of 2026, which is on track to surpass last year’s death toll. An American Civil Liberties Union report examining deaths over the past few years found that the vast majority could have been prevented with proper medical care.
USA TODAY is tracking all of these numbers as they are released, while also collecting other data. For more information on data such as deaths in custody and deportations, and notes on how it is compiled, check out our new immigration tracker here.
