What the data say about who ICE is arresting in San Diego More than half of the arrests locally by ICE’s San Diego field office this year were of people with no criminal record
By Alexandra Mendoza | alexandra.mendoza@sduniontribune.com | The San Diego Union-Tribune and Kristen Taketa | kristen.taketa@sduniontribune.com | The San Diego Union-Tribune UPDATED: July 7, 2025 at 5:29 PM PDT
In the first six months of the Trump administration’s push for mass deportations, more than half of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in San Diego and Imperial counties were of individuals with no pending criminal charges or previous criminal convictions, according to data from the federal agency obtained by the Deportation Data Project.
The data, which the project obtained via public records requests, helps show how President Donald Trump has carried out his crackdown on illegal immigration and provides a snapshot of who ICE has arrested in the region — during the initial months of enforcement as well as a more recent ramp-up marked by community pushback and videos of public arrests that go viral.
So far this year, ICE’s San Diego field office, which encompasses San Diego and Imperial counties, has made nearly twice as many arrests as it did last year — mostly of Mexican nationals, according to the data.
From January to early June, ICE’s San Diego field office made 1,042 arrests, compared to 602 last year and 191 in 2023. The project’s data goes through June 10, and only documents administrative immigration arrests made by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO, the agency’s main arm that enforces immigration policy.
The figures show that so far this year, about 53% of administrative ICE arrests locally have been of people with no criminal charges or convictions, 33% were of people with criminal convictions, while about 15% were of people who faced pending criminal charges. That’s a notable difference from last year, when 74% of arrests locally involved individuals with a criminal conviction or charges pending.
