Most people arrested by ICE in Colorado and Wyoming this year did not have criminal history

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  • Source: Colorado Public Radio
  • 07/29/2025
HSI special agents stage an enactment of a vehicle stop with air support by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement usicegov is licensed under Flikr

Immigration arrests have quadrupled in Colorado and almost tripled in Wyoming since President Donald Trump took office in January, with a significant shift in who is being targeted, new data from the federal government shows.

Most people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents between Jan. 20 and June 26 of this year in Colorado and Wyoming did not have any criminal convictions, according to ICE data released over the last few weeks. Among those arrested who had a conviction at the time of their arrest, the most serious crime is most often noted by ICE as drunken driving in both Colorado and Wyoming, the data shows.

The data, obtained from ICE and published by the Deportation Data Project, is the most detailed, publicly available picture of who is being swept up by ICE's dragnet arrest tactics in the two Western states this year. The University of California, Berkeley School of Law, which is behind the project, published the data, and The Colorado Sun and WyoFile analyzed arrests made under the jurisdiction of ICE’s Denver field office, which covers both states.

The ICE arrest data contradicts the purported goals of the Trump administration to target the “worst of the worst.” Increasingly, ICE is arresting immigrants with no criminal history, the data shows. Advocates who work with immigrant communities said the tactics, which include arresting people who appear for their immigration court proceedings, are unlike anything they’ve seen before.

Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation at Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, said in her 15 years of working with immigrants, she has never seen ICE arrest people with pending asylum cases and no criminal history. Now, she said, that is common in Colorado.

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