Sacramento County ICE arrests surge under Trump. How it compares to all California
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested at least 429 people in Sacramento County during the first nearly 15 months of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The ICE arrests in the capital region are a more than 260% increase from the same time period under the previous administration, yet significantly less than other counties in the state. The data, compiled by ICE and processed by a UC Berkeley Law School initiative, sheds light on how the agency has operated in Sacramento, where dozens of arrests have taken place downtown and through administrative transfers at prisons.
Even so, the tally is an undercount of the total immigration arrests under Trump. Other federal agencies, including the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, have conducted deportations in the area, and the dataset analyzed by The Sacramento Bee sometimes contains location information that is not detailed or missing entirely. The latest data only goes until March 31.
Of the 429 people arrested in Sacramento, less than half — 204 — had been deported.
Giselle Garcia, program director for NorCal Resist, said the arrest data largely tracks with the organization’s own informal counts though emphasized much enforcement goes unaccounted for if families aren’t willing to speak up. The group, which has a team of volunteers dedicated to tracking immigration enforcement, has seen a noticeable increase in enforcement since January 2025.
“They are devoting more resources,” Garcia said. “They’ve hired more people, so there’s way more an increase of capacity and just intention.”
ICE arrests in the region, similar to across the country, have surged since Trump retook office last year. During the roughly 15-month span before his inauguration, the agency reported 118 arrests in the county.
Sacramento County’s arrests were not nearly as high as 12 other counties in the state including Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara and Fresno. Among those, ICE reported the most arrests in San Diego County with about 8,800 and the least in Santa Clara County with 438.
Locations of arrests in the state are dependent on several factors such as percentage of immigrant population, enforcement personnel in the area and proximity to detention facilities and prisons. ICE reported minimal arrests in Northern California counties such as Alpine and Trinity, but more in counties like Shasta and Lassen. Of those four counties, Shasta, where ICE has an office in Redding, had the most with 214.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment on the data, which was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Deportation Data Project.
The Bee calculated its totals by filtering through California cases where ICE reported an “apprehension site landmark,” the most geographically-specific information on arrests. The landmarks can refer to the arrest location or a place near the arrest.
Sacramento County ICE arrests
As of the latest data, there were four specific “apprehension site landmarks” in Sacramento County: Folsom State Prison, ICE’s Sacramento Enforcement and Removal Operation Office, Sacramento County Jail and California State Prison, Sacramento.
State prisons and jails can cooperate with ICE on a limited basis, though California’s sanctuary state laws generally restrict cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement agencies. ICE arrested 38 people from Folsom State Prison in the analyzed time period.
Another 117 arrests came at or near ICE’s ERO office, which is located at the John Moss Federal Building in downtown. The building also houses offices for other federal operations including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Sacramento Immigration Court.
Since January 2025, people have been arrested at building while showing up for routine hearings at court, check-ins for green card appointments and to report a change of address.
Most of the ICE arrests in the county — 265 — did not have a specific location, instead reported as Sacramento “General Area.” NorCal Resist has tracked arrests taking place near school drop off sites, gas stations, parking lots and as people are leaving to work.
“They operate everywhere,” Garcia said. “They need to be sparse and be moving around constantly, so that their next move can’t be perceived.”
Roughly 43% of all the people arrested in the county had a criminal conviction. Another 11% had pending criminal charges. Arrests of individuals with no criminal history have grown under the second Trump administration.
Nationally, as of April, 71% of people held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction. Many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, such as traffic violations, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
