Airport ICE Arrests surge drives detention and enforcement flights nationwide

Airport ICE Arrests are surging at major transit hubs across the United States 🇺🇸 as the Trump administration rapidly expands immigration detention and deportation flights, sending thousands of people onto enforcement flights that rights groups describe as dangerous and abusive. New data from Human Rights First, the Vera Institute of Justice, and the Migration Policy Institute show a sharp rise in ICE air operations and airport-based transfers in 2025, along with record numbers of people held in detention.

Key figures and trends (January 20 – September 30, 2025)

• From January 20 to September 30, 2025, the administration carried out at least 8,877 U.S. immigration enforcement flights, according to Human Rights First — a 62 percent increase over the same period in 2024.
• In September 2025 alone, ICE Flight Monitor recorded 1,464 enforcement flights, an average of 49 flights per day — the highest monthly total since tracking began.
• Domestic transfer (“shuffle”) flights reached 5,322 flights between January 20 and September 30, 2025, a 53 percent increase over 2024, with 969 shuffle flights in September alone.

Quick reference table

What advocates caution about the “94 percent” claim

The claim that Airport ICE Arrests have jumped by 94 percent has surfaced in public debates. However, the organizations tracking ICE operations caution:

• They do not yet have a nationwide statistic labeled as a 94 percent rise in “airport arrests.”
• The documented rises instead include the 62 percent increase in total enforcement flights, steep growth in transfer flights, and sharp rises in detention bookings.
• Human Rights First and Vera stress the trend is clear, but the exact “94 percent” figure for arrests at airports has not been published in their data.

Airports and staging facilities: expanded roles in the detention system

What is clear is that airports themselves have been pulled into the detention system in a way not seen in years. Key points from Vera’s analysis:

• By early June 2025, ICE was using 436 facilities, including 149 staging facilities and 55 medical facilities — many not fully reflected in ICE’s public reports.
• Staging facilities include airports and airport‑adjacent holding areas, where people are kept before and between flights.
• The wider detention network now reaches airports, hotels, hospitals, military bases, private prisons, and local jails, often with little public visibility or local oversight.

Rising detention counts and bookings

• Vera found 61,226 people detained on August 23, 2025, the highest single‑day detention count in at least 16 years.
• The Migration Policy Institute reported 61,200 people in ICE detention on August 24, 2025, calling it “more than at any other point on record.”
• Between January 20 and early June 2025, ICE booked people into detention about 119,500 times — a 17 percent increase compared with the same period in President Trump’s first term and 46 percent higher than under President Biden for the same months.
• Vera documented 605 different facilities used by ICE from January 20 to early June 2025, up from 457 facilities in the last quarter of the Biden administration.

Conditions reported in custody and on flights

Rights groups emphasize the conditions people face in custody and aboard flights:

• Human Rights First reports people on enforcement flights are “nearly always restrained by handcuffs, waist chains and leg irons, including during any layovers and fuel stops.”
• The group says “the harsh conditions during enforcement flights raise serious human rights concerns,” particularly for children, older people, and those with medical needs.
• Documented flights include C‑17 military cargo planes and ICE‑chartered aircraft flown by private carriers such as Avelo Airlines and Eastern, used for mass transfers and removals both domestically and overseas.

“The harsh conditions during enforcement flights raise serious human rights concerns.” — Human Rights First (summary of findings)

Third‑country transfers and controversial removals

Some of the most contentious cases involve third‑country transfers — people flown to countries where they are not citizens.

• On September 30, 2025, ICE Flight Monitor tracked an ICE Air removal flight reportedly carrying 55 Iranians to Qatar. Human Rights First reports these people were handed to Iranian authorities in Qatar and then placed on a chartered Qatar Air flight for deportation to Iran.
  • The flight is said to be part of a broader U.S.–Iran agreement to deport up to 400 Iranian nationals, including political dissidents and a Christian convert who had sought asylum.
• On September 5, 2025, a C‑17 military cargo plane carried the first group of non‑Ghanaians to Ghana under a bilateral agreement in which Ghana agreed to accept third‑country nationals removed from the United States.
• Previous forced third‑country transfers have included flights to Rwanda, Eswatini, South Sudan, Uzbekistan, El Salvador, Panama, and Costa Rica.

Human Rights First describes these transfers as sending people “to countries of which they are not citizens and often have no ties.”

Family detention and facility examples

The return of family detention under the Trump administration has drawn special concern:

• By June 10, 2025, Karnes County Residential Center in Texas held 1,187 people.
• The South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley held 575 people.
• These figures mark a sharp break from the Biden‑era phase‑out of family detention.

Funding and policy context

The administration has backed expansion with significant funding increases:

• Vera notes allocation of an “unprecedented $45 billion for detention and $30 billion for additional enforcement.”
• Rights groups view this as a plan to drive up arrests, detention, and removals, including through airport hubs and air operations.
• Analysis by VisaVerge.com suggests this scale of funding makes it unlikely enforcement flights and airport‑based operations will slow without policy changes or new limits imposed by Congress or the courts.

Impacts on legal access and families

The growing use of airports and shuffle flights affects people’s ability to access justice and maintain contact with loved ones:

• Presence of ICE officers and contract security at terminals, jet bridges, and baggage areas has become a new source of fear for travelers and communities.
• When people are picked up at or near an airport and moved quickly onto shuffle flights, they may lose chances to:
  • Seek bond
  • Present claims for protection
  • Gather documents that could help their cases
• Fast transfers between cities make it harder for families to locate loved ones or confirm which facility they are in.
• While ICE maintains public information on its website, including details on ICE Air Operations, advocates argue that real‑time details about arrests and transfers remain limited.

How researchers and rights groups are responding

• Human Rights First and Vera stress the rise in enforcement flights and use of airport staging areas should be considered together with record detention levels, not as isolated developments.
• ICE Flight Monitor data (1,464 enforcement flights and 969 shuffle flights in September 2025) illustrates the speed with which people are moved through the system — each flight may carry dozens or hundreds of people, often under full restraints and with little chance to speak to lawyers between stops.
• Rights groups plan to continue tracking flight patterns and documenting conditions both in the air and on the ground.

The current rise in airport-based enforcement, detention, and transfers has both immediate human consequences and broader policy implications. Researchers note the trend builds on long‑standing systems used by multiple administrations; what has changed in 2025 is the scale and speed of operations.

Bottom line

• Data show that Airport ICE Arrests, enforcement flights, and airport‑based transfers are all moving in the same direction: sharply upward.
• Rights groups will continue monitoring these trends using tools like ICE Flight Monitor and documenting in‑custody and in‑flight conditions as the United States 🇺🇸 debates how far interior enforcement should reach and at what human cost.