Where ICE Takes People—And Where They Send Them Next

WIRED

Immigration enforcement has become a dominant theme of the second Trump administration. Since January 2025, Immigration &amp; Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested over 100,000 people—doubling the pace of the final year of Joe Biden's presidency. WIRED reporter Vittoria Elliott tracked where the most migrants are being arrested, where exactly ICE is taking them, and where they're deported to. This is Immigration &amp; Customs Enforcement, On The Grid.  Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey Director of Photography: Charlie Jordan Host: Vittoria Elliott Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen Associate Producer: Brandon White Production Manager: Peter Brunette Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark Gaffer: Chris Eustache Sound Mixer: Sean Paulsen Production Assistant: Ryan Coppola Writer: Paul Gulyas Researcher: Abrielle Ramirez

Transcript

00:00Since January, ICE has made more than 100,000 arrests,

00:03double compared to last year, leading to over 60,000 migrants currently in detention.

00:08Nearly 70% of them don't have a criminal conviction.

00:11The White House set a quota of 3,000 arrests per day,

00:14and ICE's budget is now $170 billion, with plans to double the force to about 20,000.

00:20Immigration has become the centerpiece of the Trump administration.

00:22In this video, we'll track where migrants are being arrested,

00:25where exactly they're locked up, and where they're getting deported to.

00:29Wired tracked the data. This is Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the grid.

00:38First, let's level set. From January to June of 2024, under former President Joe Biden,

00:45ICE carried out about 49,000 arrests. In that same time frame in 2025, now under President Trump,

00:52the number of arrests has surged by about 122%.

00:56So where in America is this happening? Texas alone represented about 23.2% of all arrests nationwide.

01:03Florida followed with about 11%, California with 7%, Georgia with 4%, and Arizona with 3%.

01:12The day he entered office, Trump scrapped Biden's policy that protected schools, hospitals, churches,

01:18and courthouses. Since then, ICE can operate in virtually any public space, making everywhere fair game.

01:24We've all seen images of ICE agents lurking in the hallways of courthouses waiting to arrest migrants

01:30when they step out of their hearings.

01:31Oh god.

01:32This type of raid happens frequently here, at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City.

01:38Asylum claims and deportation hearings are held here, but it's a catch-22 for many.

01:44By showing up for your court hearing, you risk arrest, and by skipping it, you risk deportation.

01:49Worksite raids are at an all-time high. Individuals accused of entering the country illegally

01:54at a Hyundai plant in Elibel, Georgia, were arrested. Many were from South Korea.

01:59It was one of the largest single-site operations in the agency's history.

02:04But the fallout from the raid has basically caused a diplomatic crisis with South Korea,

02:08because most of the people working there were not here illegally.

02:12Top industries employing undocumented immigrants include food services, waste management,

02:17manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, transportation, warehousing, and educational services.

02:23And at the top of the list, the industry perhaps the hardest hit is construction.

02:27At a construction site in Mobile, Alabama, it was reported that fears of a raid caused about

02:32half the workforce to stay away, delaying the completion of an 84,000-square-foot recreation center.

02:39This chilling effect has also largely impacted the agriculture industry.

02:43Farmers have said that ice raids in their areas have driven workers away.

02:47In California, where about a third of America's vegetables and three-quarters of its fruits are grown,

02:53roughly half of the state's farm workers lack legal status.

02:57In Ventura County, an agricultural hub that generates billions of dollars annually,

03:02much of the crop is harvested by undocumented immigrant labor.

03:06A recent study estimated that a reduction of the agricultural workforce by 20 to 40 percent

03:11would result in an estimated 3 to 7 billion dollars in lost crops,

03:16and driving produce prices up by anywhere from 5 to 12 percent.

03:20Once arrested, but before they're locked up in a detainment facility,

03:23a migrant is taken to a short-term transfer hub like the Dallas ICE field office.

03:28On September 24th, a rooftop gunman opened fire into the Sally Port,

03:32killing one detainee and critically injuring two others.

03:35ICE held 61,226 people in detention facilities, and ICE is doubling detention capacity,

03:43aiming for more than 107,000 detainees across 125 facilities.

03:48So where are these detention centers?

03:51This map is based on public data and gives us a good overview of all the locations across

03:56the United States. The bulk of the expansion is happening in Texas, California, Georgia,

04:01and Louisiana. The red points are private facilities. In fact, according to the American Immigration

04:07Council, the vast majority of people held in ICE detention are held in facilities either owned or

04:13operated by private prison companies such as GEO Group or CoreCivic. And business is booming.

04:20ICE recently announced a 15-year contract valued at a billion dollars with GEO Group

04:26to reopen Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey. With a capacity to hold about a thousand people,

04:31it will become the largest ICE processing and detention center on the East Coast.

04:36Over in Texas, we see many private facilities. As of August 18th, the state held over 13,000 detainees,

04:44the most of any state by far. That's followed by Louisiana, California, Georgia, and Arizona.

04:51Here are some of the top ICE facilities with the highest average daily population as of August 4th,

04:572025. First up, Adams County Detention Center in Natchez, Mississippi. Adams is one of ICE's biggest hubs.

05:05It averages about 2,100 detainees daily, the top in the country, and it's owned and operated by CoreCivic.

05:12Wind Correctional Center in Louisiana is located in a Gulf Coast region dubbed Detention Alley,

05:18where 14 of the nation's 20 largest immigration detention centers are located. Central Louisiana ICE

05:25processing center gained national attention for detaining Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil. He spent 104 days in

05:32detention and he was released when a federal judge ruled that his detention was unconstitutional.

05:37Over at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, in August, activists urged Clearfield

05:43County commissioners to end the county's contract with ICE and the GEO group after a 32-year-old Chinese

05:49detainee was found unresponsive in an apparent hanging. And of course, there's the infamous alligator

05:55Alcatraz. Built on the site of an abandoned airport in the Florida Everglades, the facility's remote

06:00location is indeed surrounded by alligator-infested swamps. Its supporters tout that as a natural

06:07deterrent that reduces the need for costly perimeter security. In August, a judge blocked the expansion

06:13of alligator Alcatraz, but on September 5th, an appeals court reversed that decision, and as Governor

06:18Ron DeSantis put it, the facility is now open for business. Meanwhile, civil rights lawyers are suing,

06:25saying that detainees are denied confidential communication with their attorneys, a First

06:30Amendment violation. These aren't the only accusations ISIS had over alleged civil rights violations.

06:35Remember Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba? The U.S. military prison that earned a reputation for

06:41human rights abuses and allegations of torture in post-9-11 War on Terror? As of July 2025, there were

06:47a reported 72 immigrant detainees from 26 countries being held there. On August 29th, Human Rights Watch

06:54called for a halt to transferring immigrants to the naval base due to reports that detainees were kept

06:59isolated in unsanitary conditions. Some detainees even reported attempted suicides. Eloy Federal

07:06Contract Facility in Arizona is run by the private company CoreCivic. This is where U.S. Representative

07:12Yasemin Ansari was blocked by ICE from oversight visits. Ansari recently held a press conference,

07:18for a constituent of hers who's being held there and has leukemia and who she says isn't receiving

07:23adequate care. Poor medical care seems to be a recurring theme. On August 31st, while in custody

07:28at the Central Arizona Correctional Complex, a 32-year-old man from Mexico died. A fundraising

07:33campaign created by his family states that he passed away alone, likely from complications related

07:39to COVID-19, without receiving the medical attention he deserved. According to freedomformigrants.org,

07:45there are currently 144 facilities with active COVID-19 cases, and these are just a few of the

07:50many reported violations from around the country. As of August 24th, 2025, nearly 70.3% of the more

07:57than 60,000 people in ICE detention had no criminal conviction. And among those with convictions,

08:04many were for minor offenses such as traffic violations. About 11% are on an expedited track

08:09for deportation, which means that they can be removed from the country without a hearing

08:13before an immigration judge. ICE has deported nearly 200,000 people since Trump returned to office.

08:18Add to that almost 150,000 more deportations from U.S. Customs and Border Protections, and that puts

08:24them on track for the highest level of formal deportations in a decade. So how does that compare

08:29to other previous presidents? Here we have Trump's combined totals so far, including his first term,

08:35and Bidens, Bushes, Clintons. But what about President Obama? Over the course of his two terms,

08:41ICE removals totaled around 2.4 million undocumented immigrants. Some sources put that

08:46total even higher, reporting over 3 million non-citizens removed during his presidency,

08:51more than any other president. Obama was criticized for speedy deportations without full court hearings,

08:57but after lawsuits and political pushback, his administration narrowed enforcement priorities

09:02in 2014, focusing removals on criminals, security threats, and recent border crossers.

09:07The organization Human Rights First has tracked more than 40,000 deportation flights using public

09:12data. Between January 20th and August 31st, 2025, the Trump administration carried out at least 7,454

09:19flights, a big increase versus the same period last year. In August, there were an average of 45 flights

09:25a day for a total of 1,393 immigration enforcement flights. Of these, 240 were flights that removed people

09:33from the United States, the highest monthly total ever recorded since tracking began in 2020.

09:39From a detention center, deportations are carried out by ICE Air Operations, which stages a total of

09:4412 aircraft at its locations, including in Mesa, Arizona, ICE's headquarters for air operations,

09:51San Antonio and Brownsville, Texas, Miami, Florida, and Alexandria, Louisiana, a major hub where

09:58the airport actually has a detention center on site. Flights removing detained migrants from the U.S.

10:04are usually carried out by private charter companies under government contract. Recently,

10:09a budget commercial airline, Avello, signed a contract to run deportation flights from Mesa using

10:15three Boeing 737 aircraft. The deal stirred political, ethical, safety, and labor concerns from

10:22flight attendant unions and local officials. So where are people actually being sent?

10:27In May of 2025, over half of all deportation flights went to Central America's Northern Triangle

10:33of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Mexico has received more than 39,000 deportees from the U.S.,

10:40including 6,000 who aren't Mexican citizens. These arrangements are known as third-country

10:44deportations. But perhaps the most controversial third-country deportations have been to El Salvador,

10:50which hosts migrants in its mega-prison, CICOT, notorious for its brutal conditions that have been

10:55condemned by human rights groups. Trump struck a multi-million dollar deal with El Salvadoran

11:01President Naib Bukele to send Venezuelan migrants there. Quilmar Abrego-Garcia was among those deported

11:08to El Salvador. He was mistakenly deported there under allegations of belonging to the notorious MS-13

11:14gang. He was returned in June, but became a symbol of the Trump administration's controversial deportation

11:21policy. Now the Trump administration is seeking to deport him under new charges, this time to the

11:26African nation of Iswatini. Abrego-Garcia has pleaded not guilty. African nations have also been drawn into

11:32third-country deportations. Rwanda agreed to take in 250 migrants, while in May the Trump administration

11:40attempted to send eight men to South Sudan, a country in the middle of conflict that the State Department

11:46deems unsafe for Americans to travel to. The men were convicted of crimes ranging from murder to

11:51robbery, but had finished or were nearing the end of their prison sentences. But the flight to Sudan

11:56never made it. A judge ruled that the detainees hadn't been given a fair chance to contest their

12:01removals, diverting the flight to Djibouti. Only one of the men was from South Sudan, the others came from

12:07Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Mexico, and Myanmar. U.S. officials said that their home countries had refused to accept them.

12:15So this is where we're at right now. But things are changing really quickly. The kind of money and

12:19manpower now flowing into ICE and to DHS is already radically changing immigration enforcement in the U.S.

12:27But it's not just immigrant populations that are going to feel this. We all are. Whether it's the

12:31government combining and combing through all of our data in ways that have never happened before, or

12:37restrictions on government services to people who might have immigrants in their families, or increased

12:42surveillance, or the weaponization of the immigration status of public figures, it's going to reshape this

12:48country for all of us. And at Wired, we're going to be watching. I'm Vittoria Elliott, thanks for

12:53watching On The Grid.

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