Where ICE Takes People—And Where They Send Them Next

Since January, ICE has made more than 100,000 arrests,

double compared to last year,

leading to over 60,000 migrants currently in detention.

Nearly 70% of them don't have a criminal conviction.

The White House set a quota of 3,000 arrests per day,

and ICE's budget is now 170 billion,

with plans to double the force to about 20,000.

Immigration has become the centerpiece

of the Trump administration.

In this video, we'll track

where migrants are being arrested,

where exactly they're locked up,

and where they're getting deported to.

Wired tracked the data.

This is Immigration and Customs Enforcement On The Grid.

[Cop 1] Move out the way!

[Cop 2] Move back, move back!

First, let's level set.

From January to June of 2024,

under former President Joe Biden, ICE carried out

about 49,000 arrests.

In that same timeframe in 2025,

now under President Trump, the number of arrests has surged

by about 122%.

So where in America is this happening?

Texas alone represented about 23.2%

of all arrests nationwide.

Florida followed with about 11%, California with 7%,

Georgia with 4%, and Arizona with 3%.

The day he entered office,

Trump scrapped Biden's policy that protected schools,

hospitals, churches, and courthouses.

Since then, ICE can operate in virtually any public space,

making everywhere fair game.

We've all seen images

of ICE agents lurking in the hallways of courthouses waiting

to arrest migrants when they step out of their hearings.

[Speaker] Oh God, oh God.

[speaker speaking Spanish]

This type of raid happens frequently here

at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City.

Asylum claims and deportation hearings are held here,

but it's a catch 22 for many.

By showing up for your court hearing, you risk arrest,

and by skipping it, you risk deportation.

Work site raids are at an all time high.

Individuals accused of entering the country illegally

at a Hyundai plant in Ellabel, Georgia were arrested.

Many were from South Korea.

It was one of the largest single site operations

in the agency's history.

But the fallout from the raid

has basically caused a diplomatic crisis with South Korea

because most of the people working there

were not here illegally.

Top industries employing undocumented immigrants

include food services, waste management, manufacturing,

agriculture, healthcare, transportation, warehousing

and educational services.

And at the top of the list,

the industry, perhaps the hardest hit is construction.

At a construction site in Mobile, Alabama, it was reported

that fears of a raid caused about half the workforce

to stay away, delaying the completion

of an 84,000 square foot recreation center.

This chilling effect has also largely impacted

the agriculture industry.

Farmers have said that ICE raids in their areas

have driven workers away.

In California, where about a third of America's vegetables

and three quarters of its fruits are grown,

roughly half of the state's farm workers lack legal status.

In Ventura County, an agricultural hub

that generates billions of dollars annually,

much of the crop is harvested

by undocumented immigrant labor.

A recent study estimated that a reduction

of the agricultural workforce by 20 to 40%

would result in an estimated three to $7 billion

in lost crops

and driving produce prices up by anywhere

from five to 12%.

Once arrested, but before they're locked up

in a detainment facility,

a migrant is taken to a short-term transfer hub

like the Dallas Ice Field Office.

On September 24th,

a rooftop gunman opened fire into the Sally Port,

killing one detainee and critically injuring two others.

ICE held 61,226 people in detention facilities,

and ICE is doubling detention capacity,

aiming for more than 107,000 detainees

across 125 facilities.

So where are these detention centers?

This map is based on public data

and gives us a good overview

of all the locations across the United States.

The bulk of the expansion is happening in Texas, California,

Georgia, and Louisiana.

The red points are private facilities.

In fact, according to the American Immigration Council,

the vast majority

of people held in ICE detention are held in facilities

either owned or operated by private prison companies

such as GEO Group or CoreCivic.

And business is booming.

ICE recently announced a 15 year contract valued

at a billion dollars with GEO Group

to reopen Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey.

With a capacity to hold about 1,000 people,

it will become the largest ICE processing

and detention center on the East Coast.

Over in Texas, we see many private facilities.

As of August 18th, the state held over 13,000 detainees,

the most of any state by far.

That's followed by Louisiana,

California, Georgia, and Arizona.

Here are some of the top ICE facilities

with the highest average daily population

as of August 4th, 2025.

First up, Adams County Detention Center

in Natchez, Mississippi.

Adams is one of ICE's biggest hubs.

It averages about 2,100 detainees daily,

the top in the country, and it's owned

and operated by CoreCivic.

Wind Correctional Center in Louisiana is located

in a Gulf Coast region dubbed detention alley,

where 14 of the nation's 20 largest

immigration detention centers are located.

Central Louisiana Ice Processing Center

gained national attention

for detaining Columbia student, Mahmoud Khalil.

He spent 104 days in detention,

and he was released when a federal judge ruled

that his detention was unconstitutional.

Over at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center

in Pennsylvania, in August,

activists urged Clearfield County Commissioners

to end the county's contract with ICE and the GEO group

after a 32-year-old Chinese detainee was found unresponsive

in an apparent hanging.

And of course, there's the infamous alligator Alcatraz.

Built on the site of abandoned airport

in the Florida Everglades,

the facility's remote location is indeed surrounded

by alligator infested swamps.

Its supporters tout that as a natural deterrent

that reduces the need for costly perimeter security.

In August, a judge blocked the expansion

of alligator Alcatraz,

but on September 5th, an appeals court reversed

that decision and as Governor Ron DeSantis put it,

The facility is now open for business.

Meanwhile, civil rights lawyers are suing saying

that detainees are denied confidential communication

with their attorneys, a First Amendment violation.

These aren't the only accusations ICE has had

over alleged civil rights violations.

Remember Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba,

the US military prison that earned a reputation

for human rights abuses

and allegations of torture in post 9/11 war on terror?

As of July, 2025,

there were a reported 72 immigrant detainees

from 26 countries being held there.

On August 29th, Human Rights Watch called

for a halt transferring immigrants to the naval base,

due to reports that detainees were kept isolated

in unsanitary conditions,

some detainees even reported attempted suicides.

Eloy Federal Contract Facility in Arizona

is run by the private company CoreCivic.

This is where US representative Yassamin Ansari was blocked

by ICE from oversight visits.

Ansari recently held a press conference for a constituent

of hers who's being held there and has leukemia,

and who she says isn't receiving adequate care.

Poor medical care seems to be a recurring theme.

On August 31st while in custody

at the Central Arizona Correctional Complex,

a 32-year-old man from Mexico died.

A fundraising campaign created by his family states

that he passed away alone,

likely from complications related to COVID-19,

without receiving the medical attention he deserved.

According to freedomformigrants.org,

there are currently 144 facilities

with active COVID-19 cases,

and these are just a few of the many reported violations

from around the country.

As of August 24th, 2025, nearly 70.3%

of the more than 60,000 people in ICE detention

had no criminal conviction.

And among those with convictions,

many were from minor offenses such as traffic violations.

About 11% are on an expedited track

for deportation, which means that they can be removed

from the country without a hearing

before an immigration judge.

ICE has deported nearly 200,000 people

since Trump returned to office.

Add to that, almost 150,000 more deportations

from US Customs and Border Protections,

and that puts them on track for the highest level

of formal deportations in a decade.

So how does that compare to other previous presidents?

Here we have Trump's combined total so far,

including his first term,

and Biden's Bush's, Clinton's.

But what about President Obama?

Over the course of his two terms, ICE removals totaled

around 2.4 million undocumented immigrants.

Some sources put that total even higher,

reporting over three million non-citizens removed

during his presidency, more than any other president.

Obama was criticized

for speedy deportations without full court hearings.

But after lawsuits and political pushback,

his administration narrowed enforcement priorities in 2014,

focusing removals on criminals, security threats,

and recent border crossers.

The organization Human Rights First

has tracked more than 40,000 deportation flights

using public data.

Between January 20th and August 31st, 2025,

the Trump administration carried out at least 7,454 flights

a big increase versus the same period last year.

In August, there were an average

of 45 flights a day for a total

of 1,393 immigration enforcement flights.

Of these 240 were flights

that removed people from the United States,

the highest monthly total ever recorded

since tracking began in 2020.

From a detention center,

deportations are carried out by ICE Air Operations,

which stages a total of 12 aircraft at its locations,

including in Mesa, Arizona,

ICE's headquarters for Air Operations, San Antonio

and Brownsville, Texas, Miami, Florida,

and Alexandria, Louisiana, a major hub

where the airport actually has a detention center on site.

Flights removing detained migrants from the US

are usually carried out by private charter companies

under government contract.

Recently, a budget commercial airline Avelo,

signed a contract to run deportation flights

from Mesa using three Boeing 737 aircraft.

The deal stirred political, ethical safety

and labor concerns from flight attendant unions

and local officials.

So where are people actually being sent?

In May of 2025, over half of all deportation flights

went to Central America's Northern Triangle of El Salvador,

Guatemala, and Honduras.

Mexico has received more than 39,000 deportees from the US,

including 6,000 who aren't Mexican citizens.

These arrangements are known as third country deportations.

But perhaps the most controversial

third country deportations have been to El Salvador,

which hosts migrants in its mega prison, Cecot, notorious

for its brutal conditions

that have been condemned by human rights groups.

Trump struck a multimillion dollar deal

with El Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele

to send Venezuelan migrants there.

Kilmar Abrego-Garcia was among those deported

to El Salvador.

He was mistakenly deported there under allegations

of belonging to the notorious MS13 gang.

He was returned in June, but became a symbol of the Trump

administration's controversial deportation policy.

Now, the Trump administration is seeking

to deport him under new charges,

this time, to the African nation of Eswatini.

Abrego-Garcia has pleaded not guilty.

African nations have also been drawn

into third country deportations.

Rwanda agreed to take in 250 migrants.

While in May, the Trump administration attempted

to send eight men to South Sudan, a country in the middle

of conflict that the State Department deems unsafe

for Americans to travel to.

The men were convicted of crimes ranging from murder

to robbery, but had finished or were nearing the end

of their prison sentences.

But the flight to Sudan never made it.

A judge ruled

that the detainees hadn't been given a fair chance

to contest their removals, diverting the flight to Djibouti.

Only one of the men was from South Sudan.

The others came from Laos, Vietnam, Cuba,

Mexico, and Myanmar.

US officials said

that their home countries had refused to accept them.

So this is where we're at right now,

but things are changing really quickly.

The kind of money and manpower now flowing into ICE

and to DHS is already radically changing

immigration enforcement in the US.

But it's not just immigrant populations

that are gonna feel this, we all are.

Whether it's the government combining

and combing through all of our data

in ways that have never happened before,

or restrictions on government services

to people who might have immigrants in their families

or increased surveillance,

or the weaponization of the immigration status

of public figures,

it's going to reshape this country for all of us.

And at Wired, we're gonna be watching.

I'm Vittoria Elliot, thanks for watching On The Grid.

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