ICE arrests of AAPI Californians surge driven by explosive rise in non-criminal detentions

SCREEN CAPTURE / USC

Arrests of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in California by federal agents  increased over 1,000% in the first year of the Donald Trump regime, according to an analysis out of the University of Southern California.

A newly released analysis from the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI) confirms what grassroots advocates have reported on the ground: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests targeting Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in California have escalated at alarming rates.

“We are seeing these arrests instill fear among community members and causing families to scramble and panic to find their loved ones,” said Timmy Lu, the director of AAPIs for Civic Empowerment Education Fund, at a Wednesday afternoon briefing.

According to data compiled by ERI, ICE arrests of AAPI individuals in California surged by 1,109%, far outpacing the 386% increase seen in overall statewide arrests. This massive jump expanded the AAPI share of total ICE arrests in California from 4% up to 11%, or about 3,000 individuals.

The sharpest increase stems directly from targeted detentions of individuals with no criminal history.

ICE arrests of AAPI community members without a criminal record surged by over 1,000%, pointing directly to widespread street arrests, aggressive daily enforcement quotas, and surprise detentions during routine administrative check-ins.

The spikes span across East and South Asian as well as Pacific Islander populations— with the highest arrest figures among immigrants from India, China, Vietnam, Armenia, and Laos — alongside notable increases among women and minors.

Southeast Asian communities remain disproportionately impacted due to the lingering "school-to-prison-to-deportation" pipeline, with refugees who previously served decades-old sentences being re-targeted during their regular annual immigration check-ins.

The AAPI communities feeling the impact of the rise in ICE arrests were from India, China, Vietnam, Armenia and Laos.

The analysis was based on individual arrest records between January 2024 and March 2026 reported by ICE and interpreted through UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project. The data does not include detentions by the Border Patrol and other federal agencies.

Between January 2025 and mid-October 2025, 7,243 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) were detained by ICE, 2,776 AAPI individuals were deported, and 10 AAPI detainees have died in ICE custody since October 2025.

Community advocates emphasize that these numbers reflect a severe shift toward indiscriminate enforcement, leaving working-class AAPI families and immigrant communities in constant fear of routine daily activities being upended by federal operations.

“We’re seeing pickups happening in front of their homes, on the way to work, at work, at their check-ins in the courthouse,” said CaseyAnn Carbonell, the immigration and deportation defense campaign director with Stockton-based nonprofit, Empowering Marginalized Asian Communities.

These are not the "worst of the worst" that Trump said his harsh policies would target when he ordered federal agecies to implement his plan to deport gang members, human traffickers and criminals.

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