Immigration agents detained U.S. citizens in 506 documented instances between January 2025 and September 2026, according to an investigative database compiled by ProPublica. Because federal authorities do not officially track these cases, researchers built the project by scouring court files, local journalism, and social media, establishing a baseline that the database describes as an undercount.
Cataloging Five Hundred Detentions Across the Country
The investigative project spans enforcement actions recorded from January 2025 through September 2026. The tally includes 506 total cases, encompassing at least 70 children and teenagers swept up in the enforcement operations. Roughly 20 of those young Americans were placed in handcuffs or restrained with plastic zip ties.
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The database defines a detention as any instance where immigration officers prevent a person from leaving against their will. This threshold does not require a formal arrest or handcuffs; being held at gunpoint or otherwise compelled to remain at a scene satisfies the criteria. The tally excludes routine border and airport encounters, as well as arrests executed under judicial warrants.
Challenging Citizenship and Recording Enforcement
More than 100 individuals in the database were detained specifically after immigration agents questioned the validity of their U.S. citizenship. Nearly every person subjected to these direct citizenship challenges was a person of color. Concurrently, the Department of Homeland Security maintained that safeguards remain active to prevent citizens from being detained.
The investigation also captured friction between law enforcement and observers documenting operations. At least 63 citizens were detained while filming immigration enforcement activities. In another 36 instances, detained individuals were blocked from contacting a lawyer or a relative for at least a day.
Obstruction Charges and Separate Denaturalization Actions
Over 300 of the documented cases involved allegations of assault or obstruction. However, federal prosecutors filed criminal charges in fewer than half of those incidents, with a separate analysis pegging the number of formally charged citizens at 137.
Tonight, ICE law enforcement officers were assaulted by anti-ICE rioters who sprayed law enforcement with an unknown chemical substance.Two individuals were arrested for assaulting, resisting, and impeding federal officers. Assaulting and obstructing ICE law enforcement is a…
Separately from the field detentions conducted by immigration agents, the U.S. Department of Justice pursued civil denaturalization complaints against 40 naturalized citizens. Those civil proceedings require formal court hearings and have not revoked the citizenship of any individuals involved. Meanwhile, roughly a dozen U.S. citizens, predominantly children, were deported.
