UCLA study traces how the surge of ICE arrests have affected Asians

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is responsible for enforcing immigration laws within the interior of the United States. The number of arrests for the purpose of deportation has surged since the 2024 election of Trump. (See Figure 1.) This research brief documents how that surge impacted those from Asian countries.

Figure 2 traces how that surge affected Asians. For the months of February to May, the total number of Asian arrests nearly tripled from 2024 levels, from under 700 to nearly 2,000. The Asian share of all ICE arrests went from 1.8% to 2.6%. The increase is particularly dramatic during late May and early June, as evident in Figure 3. Arrests in the first week of June 2025 were nearly nine times of that for the same week in the previous year.

Characteristics of Asian Arrests

As the number of politically motivated arrests increased under the Trump Administration, ICE went increasingly after those who were not convicted criminals. Figure 4 shows the decline in their share of all arrests during 2025, dropping from nearly half in the first three months to less than a third in early June. This is inconsistent with the campaign rhetoric of deporting the “worst of the worst”.

Based on records with location of arrests, one-in-five (19%) arrests were in California, followed by Texas and New York, each with one-in-ten arrests (11%). The top five states accounted for about half of all arrests. (See Figure 5.) Immigrants from China (PRC) accounted for nearly a third of the arrests (30%), those from India accounted for over a quarter (26%), and those from Vietnam accounted for nearly a sixth (15%). The top five countries made up nearly four-fifths (79%). (See Figure 6.)

Future Prospect

We expect to see a dramatic increase in the number of Asians arrested in the latter half of 2025. This will be driven by the Trump administration’s effort to ramp up the number of ICE arrests exponentially to reach its target of one million deportations per year. So far, ICE arrests have disproportionately impacted and harmed Latino communities, who have been subjected to extensive racial profiling. This will likely change because Asians are 16% of the estimated number of undocumented immigrants and 25% of the non-citizen immigrants, but they made up less than 3% of those arrested during the first few months of the Trump Administration. The predicted increase may very well be accompanied by a resurgence in anti-Asian xenophobia.

Contact Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, knowledge@luskin.ucla.edu

This research project is a collaborative effort of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. We are thankful for the assistance provided by Melany Dela Cruz-Viesca and Cindy Quach.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the University of California, Los Angeles. The authors alone are responsible for the content of this report.