SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — New data shows how immigration enforcement in San Diego has transformed under the Trump Administration. Not only have arrests spiked significantly, but a majority involve people with no criminal history.
“In this case, it seems that anyone would become a number for them to meet their quota is how they are acting upon this," said Pedro Rios, a local human rights advocate and director of the American Friends Service Committee's U.S./Mexico Border program.
The numbers were shared by the Deportation Data Project, which collected arrest records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement before and during Trump's second term.
You can download the complete report by visiting this page.
Once you open the file, you can toggle with the filters to narrow the Area of Responsibility to ICE's San Diego field office, which covers San Diego and Imperial Counties.
Since the start of this year through June 10th, there's been 1,042 ICE arrests.
That's almost double the total of 602 from all of last year.
This administration has said it wants to target "the worst of the worst," but a majority of the local arrests involve people with no criminal history.
In the same 2025 time span, from Jan.1-June 10, the records show 53% of those arrested by ICE were not convicted criminals, nor did they have any pending charges.
The year before, that same number was cut in half to 26%.
“Immigration laws have been dysfunctional for many years, and maybe they were meant to be that way," Rios said. "But the dysfunction then does not allow people that have been living in the United States for a long time, people that have made their lives here, to not become targets of immigration enforcement raids.”
This comes as President Trump's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill will send an additional $165 billion in funding to the Department of Homeland Security, with enough for ICE to hire 10,000 new agents.
“The unprecedented budget for increasing ICE operations, including detention, including all of how they're able to operate with other government agencies, is reckless," Rios said. "What we will see is a trampling of basic constitutional rights but human rights as well.”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem put it in a much different light, saying, “President Trump’s signing the One Big Beautiful Bill is a win for law and order and the safety and security of the American people."
ABC 10News reached out to DHS and ICE's San Diego field office for comment late Monday evening. We'll let you know when they get back to us.
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