Immigration / ICE
~1,050
People booked into detention today
~226
Are children
60,311
Total number of people detained
Why should I care?
The Trump administration says this is about deporting criminals. The data says otherwise: 73% of people in detention have no criminal conviction — only 5% have a violent one. Courts have repeatedly found the administration is breaking the law to make that happen: as of August 2026, eight federal appeals courts — most recently the Third Circuit — have ruled that ICE can't lock people up for months or years with no hearing at all. Detained children are supposed to be protected by a binding 1997 court settlement requiring humane treatment and family reunification; the administration tried to end that settlement outright, and a federal judge refused, ruling the government hadn't even met its existing obligations. And 2025 was the deadliest stretch in ICE custody in almost two decades — worse than 2020, when COVID-19 swept through detention facilities.
"Because their detentions without hearings violated the Immigration and Nationality Act and due process, we will affirm."
— Judge Patty Shwartz, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, ruling ICE's mandatory-detention policy unlawful, August 28, 2026
What's a "bond hearing," and why does this ruling matter? Normally, someone ICE detains can ask a judge for a bond hearing — a chance to argue they should be released while their immigration case plays out. In 2025 the administration adopted a policy denying that hearing altogether to certain immigrants, meaning they could be held for months or years with no chance to make their case. This is now the eighth federal appeals court to say that policy is illegal — a violation of both immigration law and the Constitution's due-process protections. The administration is expected to keep appealing, possibly to the Supreme Court.
The receipts
Two separate, independently documented pictures of what's actually happening inside detention: who's really in custody, and how many are dying.
| Category | Share |
|---|---|
| No criminal conviction | 73% |
| Non-violent criminal conviction | ~22% |
| Violent criminal conviction | 5% |
Based on people booked into ICE custody since October 2025 (Cato Institute analysis of ICE's own data). The 22% non-violent figure is the remainder after no-conviction and violent-conviction shares — not stated as its own number in the source.
| Category | Deaths |
|---|---|
| Died in ICE custody | 52 |
| Killed by immigration agents, not in custody (shootings during arrests, raids, and pursuits) | 11 |
Both figures are since Jan. 20, 2025, through the most recent available data. Custody deaths from Human Rights Watch, compiled from ICE's own death-report records, FOIA requests, and family interviews; ICE's own public reporting lags for months, so the true total today is very likely higher. Agent-shooting deaths from a running, incident-by-incident tally sourced to wire-service and local reporting (AP, NYT, WSJ, and others) on each case; both figures are floors, not ceilings.
Sources
Source for the daily booking average and the 60,311 total-detained figure in the stat cards above.
Source for the ~226 children detained per day figure.
David J. Bier, November 24, 2025. Source for the conviction-status breakdown.
Judge Patty Shwartz, August 28, 2026. Source for the pull-quote above and the ruling that ICE's no-bond-hearing policy is unlawful.
June 25, 2026. Source for the 52 in-custody death count and the "deadliest in decades" comparison in the paragraph above.
Updated through July 2026. A running, incident-by-incident tally sourced to AP, NYT, WSJ, and local reporting. Source for the 11 agent-shooting deaths, not in custody.
Source for Judge Gee's ruling on the Flores Settlement, August 15, 2025.