WASHINGTON:- Since President Donald Trump began his second term last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested nearly 20,000 people in the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia areas between March 10, 2026.
By comparison, nearly 3,800 people were arrested in the same area alone during the last full year of the Joe Biden administration. This indicates a significant increase in immigration enforcement under the new administration.
Federal data shows that arrest rates in the D.C. area have been on the rise since December, despite a sharp increase in the past year. In Maryland and Virginia, however, arrest rates have remained steady. Local leaders and activists say there is no clear sign of a decline in enforcement.
While high-profile arrests have been fewer, arrests at the community level have not decreased, according to Atenes Burola Estrada, deputy program director at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights in Washington.
He said many immigrants are being arrested while they are going through the government’s “check-in” process.
The increase comes under the Trump administration’s tough immigration policies, which he made a key agenda item in his 2024 election campaign.
In January, then-Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem announced the administration’s achievements, saying that nearly 3 million immigrants had left the United States. She said 2.2 million had been deported and 675,000 had been deported.
Trump fired Noem in early March over the controversy surrounding the shooting of two Americans during an immigration protest in Minnesota.
He has been replaced by Markwayne Mullin, who was confirmed by the US Senate in late March.
While Noem claims that 70 percent of those arrested have criminal records, the figures are different. Of the total number of arrests, about 19,500, 11,600 (60 percent) have no criminal record.
Additionally, nationally, about 40 percent of those arrested have no criminal history.
This figure is based on public records obtained through the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley.