Donald Trump’s ICE officials have disclosed that Joe Biden’s administration intentionally manipulated their numbers regarding the arrests of illegal immigrants while he was in office.
The shocking admission was made as they reported that the deportation efforts under Trump in the first three months of 2025 have already exceeded all the ICE arrests carried out by Biden in 2024.
Due to the significant changes made by the Republicans to the immigration system, detention centers are now reaching their full capacity, with more than 47,600 detainees currently housed at facilities operating at maximum occupancy, as stated by a senior U.S. ICE official to the press.
ICE has roughly enough funding to house on average 41,500 detainees, meaning they are already thousands over capacity.
Immigration officials also shared that after an internal review, they found that the Biden administration ‘cooked the books’ and intentionally altered arrest data.
These Biden officials ‘falsely inflated’ ICE arrest data and were ‘purposely misleading the American public,’ the Trump officials claimed.
ICE officials made the shocking claim that Biden rounded up tens of thousands of illegal aliens and said that they were ‘arrested’ – however the new investigation revealed these people were simply released back into American communities.
These incidents, called ‘pass through arrests,’ were where ICE released illegal migrants but still counted the enforcement action as an interior arrest.
Of the 113,431 migrant arrests recorded in 2024, the majority were phony ‘pass through arrests,’ the official revealed today.
Immigration detention centers are housing 47,600 detainees, a senior U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official told reporters on a call Wednesday. The first U.S. military aircraft to carry detained migrants to a detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is above
ICE arrests at large arrests are already up over 100% when compared to last year
Chinese Migrants attempting to cross in to the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border November 11, 2023 in Jacumba, California. Some estimates say that over 10 million migrants illegally crossed into the U.S. under Biden
Thousands of gang members and violent criminals were included in these pass through arrests, and the Republican administration is now prioritizing finding these previously released offenders.
By contrast, the Trump administration swore that none of their ICE arrests so far have been ‘pass through arrests.’
The ICE official shared that the agency is expanding its bed capacity with help from the Department of Defense, U.S. Marshals Service and Bureau of Prisons.
The Trump administration is also searching for solutions to provide more bed space to increase capacity and sustain its ongoing deportation efforts.
Congress will need to provide additional funding to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expand bed access, and Republicans are looking to include cash for deportations in upcoming legislation.
Already, ICE has arrested more at large migrants, those apprehended in the community rather than at prisons or jails, than all of last year under Joe Biden’s leadership.
During Trump’s first 50 days in office, his administration has doubled the amount of ICE arrests that happened during the same period under Biden, according to the acting ICE chief.
‘I want to be clear that the ICE arrests in the first 50 days of President Trump’s administration are outpacing those that were under the Biden administration,’ ICE acting Director Todd Lyons shared on the call.
Though at the pace of the arrests, just about 950,000 illegal immigrants will be apprehended this year.
That’s a far cry from the suspected 10 million migrants who illegally crossed into the U.S. under the previous administration.
Nestor Flores Encarnacion, a 58-year-old undocumented alien, is arrested by ICE. Flores has illegally entered the U.S. four times and is wanted in Veracruz, Mexico, for rape of a child
ICE announced in a statement on February 26 that it will be reopening an immigration detention facility in Newark at Delaney Hall. The for-profit, privately run detention facility is getting a contract from the federal government to reopen as a federal immigration processing and detention center, housing over 1,000 beds
A federal agent checks a detained migrant before boarding a flight to Guantanamo Bay, where the Pentagon is assisting DHS and ICE by housing migrants
‘As of yesterday, ICE arrests have surpassed all of last year’s at large criminal arrests. Doubling ICE arrests is just a start,’ Lyons shared.
‘We expect these ICE arrests and removal numbers will only go up as we unleash an agency that has had its hands tied behind its back the past four years,’ Lyons continued.
‘These ICE enforcement operations are not only removing criminals from the American communities, but they are also discouraging people from coming to our country illegally.’
