Florida tops the nation in ICE arrests this year, report says

Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel on Mar 22, 2026

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ICE agents in Florida have made more immigration arrests so far this year than counterparts in any other part of the country, outpacing even places with announced “surges,” new data shows.

The Miami Field Office for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Office — which covers Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands — is credited with about 120 arrests per day in 2026 or 9,880 total as of March 10, the New York Times reported Friday.

The Florida arrest data reflects the efforts of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has worked to position the state as President Donald Trump’s closest ally in his mass deportation agenda. DeSantis called a special legislative session on immigration even before Trump returned to office, required all of Florida’s law enforcement agencies to become partners in immigration enforcement and last year opened Alligator Alcatraz, an immigration detention center in the Everglades.

The Times noted that places with aggressive ICE enforcement, including Minnesota where a so-called surge left two U.S. citizens dead, still trailed Florida, despite the higher-profile activity. For instance, the St. Paul field office had made 5,530 arrests as of March 10, it reported, about 4,300 fewer than the Miami office.

DeSantis announced in early January that the state’s efforts last year, dubbed Operation Tidal Wave, had led to more than 10,000 immigration arrests in the previous eight months and called them a sign of the “strength” of Florida’s partnership with ICE.

State totals are not available for 2026 yet, and the ICE data the Times cited, which was in a document the news organization said it reviewed, could not be independently verified. ICE did not respond to a request for comment on the data.

Florida’s pace is so brisk that even some law enforcement leaders are questioning all those arrests, including federal judges in the Central Florida region overseeing detention hearings, and Republican sheriffs and police chiefs appointed to the State Immigration Enforcement Council. Their focus is on the large number of detainees who are accused of immigration violations but no other crimes.

Last week, some of those leaders discussed sending a letter to Trump, asking him to create a path to citizenship for those immigrants.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a Republican who chairs the council, suggested local law enforcement shouldn’t have to arrest those who aren’t facing other criminal charges.

“Those are the folks we need in this country that we embrace, because we are a country of immigrants,” Judd said. “But we have allowed, what I call the criminal troublemaker, to just flood in this country and victimize people. And I think a path for the good folks with a good intention, for the right reason, is reasonable.”

DeSantis sharply disagreed Thursday.

“This idea that unless you’re an axe murderer you should be able to stay, that is not consistent with our laws, and it’s also not good policy,” he said.

The data obtained by the Times shows that since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, daily arrests have steadily climbed from roughly 70 per day to now about 120 per day for the Miami Field Office, whose totals reflect arrests by federal, state and local officials in Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

The field office with the next closet tally is Dallas, which has about 80 arrests per day, though that number has declined from its peak of more than 90 per day late last year.

It’s unclear what portion of the Miami office arrests occurred in Central Florida.

Earlier this year, the Orange County Jail, which acts as a regional holding center for people detained, had as many as 185 people on a single day booked without criminal charges beyond their immigration violation.

The sky-high totals triggered Mayor Jerry Demings into limiting capacity at the jail to no more than 66 men and 64 women who could be held at one time without criminal charges.

After Demings’ decision, the census of people held without criminal charges dipped from about an average of 142 per day in January to 48 in February. Those lower figures have continued so far in March, down to about 26 per day, according to data obtained from the Orange County Jail.

But that does not mean ICE arrests are down, only that fewer of those detainees are being held in the 33rd Street facility.

About half of ICE’s arrests nationwide last year were of people who already were in custody by another law enforcement agency, the Times reported.

And the document it cited noted there are another 7 million people who aren’t in detention that ICE believes can be deported. Those include people who were released by the agency previously, are awaiting an immigration court date or who entered the country legally under Biden-era programs, which Trump has now revoked. An estimated 1 million of those immigrants are in Florida, the Times said.

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