ICE arrests in New York and other parts of America have disproportionately targeted Latino individuals for arrest and potential deportation, a new report has found.
Revealed by the New York Immigration Coalition, the report examined data gathered from the University of California, Berkeley on immigration arrests made from the final year of the Biden administration on Jan. 1, 2024, to the first six months of the Trump administration ending in July 2025, and focuses on New York state.
Even though Central and South American residents make up just a quarter of the city’s immigrant population, the report found that immigrants from Central and South America comprised nearly three-fourths of all ICE arrests in the Big Apple.
“ICE is disproportionately targeting Latinos for arrest, both nationally and in New York state,” Vice President of Policy at the New York Immigration Coalition Mario Bruzzone explained. “For example, Ecuadorians are 4% of non-citizens in New York State, but they are 24.9% of ICE arrests. Mexicans are 5.6% of non-citizens but they’re 9.9% of ICE arrests. Guatemalans are 1.6% of non-citizens but 8.4% of ICE arrests. Hondurans 1.3% of non-citizens but 6.0% of ICE arrests and so forth.”
Bruzzone went on to state that the report also found that the person’s Latino country of origin did not matter — the individuals were apprehended based merely on their ethnicity.
“What we want to show here and emphasize is that it doesn’t matter what country of Latin America you come from, you are disproportionately subject to arrest at a population level,” Bruzzone added.
The statistics also show that men are prime targets of ICE. Although they make up 50% of the immigrant population, the numbers show that males make up 89% of those arrested by ICE.
Over the last six months, amNewYork has documented the impacts of ICE arrests at Federal Plaza court proceedings and around the Big Apple. In many instances, the individuals arrested were men and the primary source of household income — forcing their wives and children to struggle with food and financial insecurity without them.
In two such examples, Alexandra Alvarez, was left alone with her less than one-year-old baby, while Jessica Supliguicha was left to care for a newborn and a 9-year-old child, after ICE agents arrested their husbands.
According to Chloe East, associate professor of Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder, law enforcement arrests of immigrants with criminal records have decreased, while street raids that happen on the corners of blocks, apartment complexes, and other community areas are on the rise.
“Almost 70% of people who are arrested have no criminal conviction,” East said. “Every time ICE ramps up its community arrests, its ability to prioritize individuals with criminal records goes down.”
Border Czar Tom Homan has repeatedly claimed that ICE is targeting “the worst of the worst,” meaning immigrants with criminal backgrounds. The reality, however, is that often ICE agents in New York and elsewhere are abducting an array of individuals — men, women, and children — regardless of their background.
Previous reports in amNewYork have shown masked ICE agents pulling children from their families and pulling pedestrians without a criminal history into unmarked cars.
While ICE arrests in the Big Apple have not been as heavy as those found in other cities and states across the country, such as Los Angeles, the Immigration Coalition warns that if Trump were to order a federal takeover of New York, those numbers would rapidly increase.
