ICE arrests of immigrants without criminal records surge in Northern California

Immigration agents in Northern California arrested about five times as many people without apparent criminal records during the first nine months of President Donald Trump’s second term as in the entire year prior, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis of federal data.

Trump administration officials, while maintaining that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents target the “worst of the worst” in the country illegally, have argued that federal law requires deportation regardless of a person’s criminal history.

Immigrant advocates say the surge in arrests of those who do not appear to have criminal records — a trend mirrored nationwide as total immigration arrests have soared — is stoking fear among migrant families across Northern California, many of whom are seeking legal pathways to remain in the United States.

The fear intensified last week after a Bay Area family said a 6-year-old deaf child who attended a Fremont school was detained by immigration authorities and deported along with his mother and younger brother during what was supposed to be a routine check-in visit at an ICE office in San Francisco.

According to the family’s attorney, the child, Joseph Rodriguez, and his family had fled Colombia four years ago and were seeking asylum in the United States.

“People are afraid to go to work, and to send their kids to school,” said San Francisco immigration attorney Milli Atkinson.

Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to questions about the increase in arrests.

During a news conference last year, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said immigration agents target “violent criminals,” as well as “those that are breaking our laws, and those that have final removal orders.” President Donald Trump fired Noem on Thursday, following mounting criticism of her leadership of the administration’s immigration crackdown and disaster response.

The data shows a sharp rise in ICE arrests of those the agency classifies as an “other immigration violator,” which multiple experts who reviewed the data said appears to refer to immigrants who have not been convicted or charged with a crime. ICE did not respond to a request to clarify what constitutes an other immigration violator.

Entering the United States illegally is a misdemeanor, and doing so after a prior deportation can be a felony. However, simply being in the country without authorization — for example, after overstaying a visa — is generally a civil violation, according to immigration advocates. They say there are likely millions of immigrants now in the U.S. without permission who initially entered legally.

From January through September 2025, ICE made 1,514 arrests for other immigration violations in Northern California, according to this news organization’s analysis of federal data shared by UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project. That was up from just 271 such arrests in all of 2024 under the Biden administration.

Total ICE arrests climbed to 4,281 during the first three quarters of last year, nearly double the total for all of 2024.

Roughly a third of those arrests were for other immigration violations, compared to about 1 in 10 in 2024. The share of other immigration violation arrests shot up throughout 2025, reaching 48% in September.

Complete arrest data for ICE’s Northern California region, which also includes Central California, Hawaii and Guam, was only available from September 2023 through September 2025. However, a new working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that nationwide, other immigration violation arrests by ICE away from the U.S.-Mexico border last year reached a high point over the past decade.

One of the hallmarks of Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown has been ICE increasingly arresting people within local communities, with federal agents staging raids on farms and businesses and carrying out sweeping enforcement operations in Democratic-led cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis.

Until recently, the large majority of ICE arrests away from the U.S. border involved transferring inmates from jails or prisons to immigrant detention centers rather than “street arrests” in neighborhoods, according to the Deportation Data Project and other experts.

In Northern California, street arrests spiked from just a few dozen a month under Biden to more than 360 in each of June, July and August, according to the data analysis by this news organization.

In September, street arrests totaled 627, representing nearly three-quarters of all ICE apprehensions in the region.

“Everything you’re seeing is being driven by street arrests,” said Caitlin Patler, co-author of the working paper and a UC Berkeley immigration researcher, not affiliated with the Data Project.

California law restricts when local enforcement can coordinate with ICE in making such arrests, and federal officials and Republicans have assailed the policy for hindering immigration enforcement. The administration has argued the state’s “sanctuary” law and similar local ordinances have forced ICE to go into the streets, contending that makes it more dangerous for agents, their targets and the general public.

Jan Soule, President of the Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women, accused state and local lawmakers behind the laws of making her community less safe.

She pointed to the death of Bambi Larson, who Santa Clara County prosecutors said was killed by a man from El Salvador, later found mentally unfit to stand trial. Federal officials said the man was the subject of repeated detainer requests that local authorities declined to honor.

“I want violent criminals removed from the streets, and that is what the government owes me,” Soule said.

During the first nine months of the second Trump term, authorities deported 2,586 immigrants arrested by ICE in Northern California, an almost 40% increase from all of 2024, according to the data analysis. It was unclear how many had criminal records.

According to federal data, more than half of nationwide deportations between 2013 and 2022 were “noncriminal removals.” But Kevin Johnson, a UC Davis law professor who closely tracks immigration trends, said it’s “highly likely” that most of those deportations involved migrants who had recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border — hundreds of miles from Northern California. Annual ICE reports from that period show that an “overwhelming majority” of noncriminal deportations by the agency occurred at the border. Customs and Border Protection agents also carry out deportations, but it was unclear how many noncriminals they removed over that period.

Many of the border deportations targeted migrants seeking asylum after fleeing persecution in their home countries. Trump officials have rebuked the Biden administration for allowing millions of asylum seekers into the country through the southern border, arguing that doing so has endangered public safety by admitting potential criminals.

While Trump officials say the current deportation surge is succeeding in rooting out dangerous criminals, immigrant advocates have decried the crackdown for separating families and sending people back to countries where their lives may be in danger.

Atkinson, the immigration attorney, said ICE has increasingly sought to arrest and deport noncitizens living in the U.S. and seeking legal asylum. She said many are being detained indefinitely while their cases are pending.

In court filings, administration officials have argued such detentions are lawful, even as judges nationwide have ordered authorities to release asylum seekers while their cases are ongoing, as detainees have complained of being held in cramped and unsafe conditions.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Southern California, a Biden appointee, issued a stern ruling limiting such detentions, potentially giving thousands of immigrants across the country the opportunity to soon seek their release.