Immigrants claiming their detention is illegal have filed more than 18,000 challenges in federal court. This total is more than were filed under the last three administrations combined — including Trump’s first term.
Tracking the Historic Rise of Habeas Cases Filed by Detained Immigrants
ProPublica is tracking the historic rise in challenges filed by immigrants claiming their detention is illegal.
Just 2% of Immigration Court Filings Based on Alleged Criminal Activity in February 2026
Numbers are also lower now than they were a year earlier when President Trump returned to office. One year ago in February 2025, DHS filed NTAs on 821 individuals based on claims of criminal activity compared with 741 today. This represented 4 percent of the cases filed a year ago, rather than just 2 percent now.
More Than 500 U.S. Citizens Have Been Detained, Including Handcuffed or Held at Gunpoint, in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown — ProPublica
The government doesn’t track how often immigration officers detain U.S. citizens. So ProPublica did. We’ve found more than 500 Americans who were held against their will during this Trump administration.
10,000 rulings: The courts’ overwhelming rebuke of Trump’s ICE policies
A POLITICO analysis reveals judges have ruled against ICE detention practices in roughly 90 percent of cases since the agency mandated that millions of immigrants must be locked up while they face deportation proceedings.
New Proceedings Filed in Immigration Court
Opinion | Trump slashed our funding — and the only chance for thousands of kids to get a fair shot in immigration court
More and more kids, and even babies, are being forced to show up for immigration court alone without lawyers, adequate resources or protection.
Mass Arrests by Trump's ICE, CBP Repeatedly Fail Under Scrutiny — ProPublica
ProPublica and FRONTLINE found more than 300 protesters and bystanders who were arrested on charges like assaulting an immigration agent or interfering with law enforcement. Over and over, the accusations fell apart under scrutiny.
10,000 Court Decisions Can’t Be Wrong, Even If Trump Thinks Otherwise
It’s absolutely amazing how wrong this administration has been when it comes to immigration enforcement. That some people still think the Supreme Court is in the best position to resolve this…
TRAC Immigration
The decrease from the levels five years ago in immigration prosecutions for these matters is shown more clearly in this figure. The vertical bars in Figure 1 represent the number of immigration prosecutions of this type recorded on a month-to-month basis. Where a prosecution was initially filed in U.S. Magistrate Court and then transferred to the U.S. District Court, the magistrate filing date was used since this provides an earlier indicator of actual trends.
Unaccompanied immigrant minors face growing hurdles from the Trump administration crackdown
Many children are having to defend their cases alone before immigration judges, without lawyers, while the government has made it harder for them to leave the shelter system and reunite with their families
Toolkit: Lost in the US immigration detention system — Freedom for Immigrants
Below are some scenarios where your friend or loved one might be depending on how they interacted with immigration enforcement:
ICE Detention Trends | Vera Institute of Justice
Every year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) subjects hundreds of thousands of people to civil immigration detention—a practice that is unjust, inhumane, and completely unnecessary. It does so under a veil of secrecy, sharing only limited, often error-prone statistics with the public. ICE’s failure to regularly release accurate, complete, and accessible data to the public enables it to operate its multi-billion-dollar detention network with impunity and little oversight.
Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions
A public resource tracking the legal challenges to the Trump administration's executive orders and actions.
Deportation Data Project
The Deportation Data Project obtains, posts, and analyzes internal U.S. government immigration enforcement data via public records litigation.
Federal Court Rules Speech-Based Deportations Violate the First Amendment
The decision goes further than other similar recent rulings.
One Year of Immigration Enforcement Under the Second Trump Administration – Deportation Data Project
The story of immigration enforcement in the first year-plus of the second Trump administration is a story of a drastic increase in interior immigration enforcement: enforcement that occurs within the United States, usually far from the border. Interior deportations surged to five times their pre-inauguration level (see Figure 1).1