Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, federal immigration agents have arrested 4,218 people in Michigan, and less than a quarter had criminal convictions, according to Metro Times’s review of data from the Deportation Data Project.
The numbers, which run through the first two months of 2026, show a sharp rise in immigration enforcement during Trump’s first 14 months back in the White House. They also contradict the administration’s rhetoric that the crackdown is centered on immigrants with serious criminal records.
Of the 4,218 people arrested in Michigan from January 2025 through February 2026, only 966, or about 23%, had criminal convictions. Another 1,094, or about 26%, had pending criminal charges, according to the data.
But pending charges are not convictions, and some of those cases may have been dismissed or ended in acquittals. PolitiFact found that the Department of Homeland Security’s rhetoric overstated what the data showed.
That means less than half of those arrested had been convicted of a crime or were facing criminal charges, even as the administration has claimed its immigration campaign is targeting “the worst of the worst.”
The increase in arrests has been dramatic.
In all of 2025, ICE arrested 3,298 immigrants in Michigan. That is more than three times the 952 arrests recorded in 2024, the final full year of Joe Biden’s presidency.
In 2024, about 50% of the immigrants arrested in Michigan had criminal convictions. During Trump’s first 14 months in office, that figure dropped to about 23%.
The month-by-month numbers show how quickly enforcement ramped up.
ICE made 85 arrests in Michigan in January 2025, followed by 147 in February, 186 in March, and 234 in April. The numbers dipped slightly in May to 195 before jumping to 342 in June.
From June 2025 through December 2025, ICE averaged about 350 arrests a month in Michigan. During the first five months of last year, the average was about 169.
The crackdown intensified even more this year. ICE arrested 477 people in Michigan in January and 443 in February, the highest two-month stretch in the data.
Men accounted for the overwhelming majority of those arrested. Of the 4,218 arrests, 3,888 involved men and 330 involved women.
The immigrants came from 93 countries, but most were from Latin America.
Mexicans accounted for 1,349 arrests, or about 32% of the total. Venezuelans were next at 830, followed by Guatemalans at 550, Hondurans at 298, Colombians at 192, and Nicaraguans at 126.
Of the 93 countries, only eight were predominantly white. A total of 20 immigrants from France, Canada, Poland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and Italy were arrested during Trump’s first 14 months of his second term.
ICE also arrested children and elderly immigrants. A total of 108 people arrested were teenagers, and 21 were 12 or younger. The youngest was a 3-year-old from Guatemala. The oldest was a 74-year-old man from Albania. Six people arrested were 70 or older, and 67 were in their 60s.
By the end of February 2026, 2,911 of the 4,218 cases had ended in deportations. About 1,190 cases remained active.
During Trump’s first 14 months, only two immigrants, one from Vietnam and one from Nicaragua, were granted permanent residence after getting arrested.
One of the arrested immigrants, a Mexican woman born in 1987, died in July 2025. The details remain unclear, and Metro Times is awaiting a response from ICE.
Fears of mass deportations have shaken immigrant communities in Michigan, especially southwest Detroit, where families are keeping children from school and limiting time outside.
Last month, civil rights advocates and health care workers warned that growing fears of immigration enforcement are keeping patients from seeking medical care.
“For many years, federal immigration enforcement agencies had internal guidance that limited enforcement at locations considered sensitive,” ACLU staff attorney Ramis J. Wadood. “But last year, the second Trump administration ended the sensitive locations policy, allowing immigration [agents] to now do enforcement at schools, places of worship, hospitals and medical clinics.”
That policy change has led to confusion among health care providers and fear among patients, even though the law itself hasn’t changed, Wadood said.
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