In 2019, an anonymous Border Patrol agent told CBS News, “Two things hit you right off the bat, the moment you open or walk through these doors … you hear kids crying and simultaneously, you get hit with the smell of people that have been there for too long.” The conditions in these detention centers and the state of immigration enforcement have only worsened since then.
This article is Part Two of our three part immigration series. It will examine the current state of immigration detention and deportation, as well as the dehumanizing elements of this process.
While immigration enforcement has long been fraught with abuse, the current administration has sharply increased detentions and deportations, straining the system and multiplying abuses.
Defining Legal Status
Before examining detention and deportation, it is important to understand who the targets are and what it means to be considered unlawfully present in the United States. As the earlier edition of this blog explains, immigration status is broad and complicated. An undocumented person can be someone who entered the United States without inspection, overstayed a visa, lost temporary protection, or remained in the country after receiving a final removal order. It must be noted that simply being undocumented is not a criminal offense but a civil one. Improper entry or coming to the US without inspection, failure to register once in the country, or improperly re-entering once deported are criminal offenses. Roughly half of undocumented persons do not enter illegally.
Who Is Being Deported? Is It Really Criminals?
According to the Cato Institute, approximately 73% of people booked into ICE custody in 2025 had no criminal conviction. Of the remaining group, the vast majority had minor infractions, such as traffic violations, or other nonviolent offenses. Only approximately 5% had a violent criminal conviction.These figures only include people in ICE custody, not every person undergoing removal proceedings. However, these numbers challenge the administration’s repeated assertion that immigration detention and deportation primarily target dangerous criminals. More recent detention data show a similar pattern. According to TRAC Immigration, ICE held 65,765 people in detention as of July 11, 2026. Of those detainees, 46,436, or 70.6%, had no criminal conviction.
Revoking Status
With constantly changing immigration policies, many people who were previously lawfully present in the United States now risk losing those protections. This is particularly true for people with Temporary Protected Status.Temporary Protected Status is a countrywide humanitarian designation granted to eligible individuals from countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disasters, political instability, or other extraordinary conditions that make a safe return difficult. In other words, the United States previously determined that conditions were unsafe for these individuals to return, yet many may now be forced to do so.Approximately 1.3 million people were living in the United States with TPS as of March 31, 2025. Many TPS designations have since been terminated, shortened, or placed under review. (American Immigration Council source) Each of those 1.3 million people entered the United States legally.
The Broader Effects of Increased Immigration Enforcement
According to the Deportation Data Project, there has been a more than fourfold increase in ICE arrests resulting in detention in the past 2 years. Increased ICE activity has resulted in at least seven people being shot and killed during immigration enforcement operations since January 2025. Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was among the most recent. He was fatally shot in an ICE vehicle stop in Biddeford, Maine, while his three year old daughter was nearby. Many immigrants are now afraid to leave their homes because they fear being stopped, detained, or separated from their families.
Immigration enforcement does not affect only the people who are detained or deported. It also affects their children, classmates, teachers, and entire communities. WUSF described the chilling effect immigration enforcement has had on Florida schoolchildren. Florida reduced its estimated kindergarten through twelfth grade enrollment for the 2025 to 2026 school year by 46,455 students. There was also a decrease of 17,312 students enrolled in ESOL programs, which serve students who are learning English as a second language. Although these decreases cannot all be attributed to ICE activity, educators and state analysts say the correlation between immigration enforcement and declining enrollment is clear.
Shuffling Immigrants Through Third Country Agreements and Deportations
The administration has also expanded the practice of deporting people to third countries. A third country deportation occurs when a person is sent to a country where they are not a citizen and may never have lived.Countries that have reportedly accepted at least some third country deportees include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Eswatini, Ghana, Panama, Rwanda, Mexico, and South Sudan. (Council on Foreign Relations source) In the case of third-country deportations, deportees often have no family connections to the countries receiving them. Some may also face detention or other restrictions after arriving. This has reportedly been the case for some Cubans sent to Mexico. Cuba may refuse to accept them, and remaining in Mexico requires a long procedure, leaving them stuck between borders without a clear place to go.
According to the June 2026 ICE Flight Monitor, the United States conducted at least 288 removal flights to 36 countries during that month. The report also documented 1,148 domestic transfer flights.Detainees have described being restrained with handcuffs, waist chains, and leg shackles during deportation flights. (Associated Press source)
Domestic flights are also part of the constant shuffling of immigrants, adding another level of cruelty to the process. Immigrants are moved from one detention center to another, often without proper notification. This leaves their families and legal representatives unable to locate or contact them.These transfers can also prevent immigrants from accessing their lawyers and preparing their cases. There are ongoing court challenges to the constant movement of detained immigrants, because ICE is supposed to ensure that detained people have reasonable access to legal representation.
Conditions in Detention Centers
Conditions inside immigration detention facilities have raised significant concerns about sanitation, healthcare, overcrowding, food, physical treatment, and access to legal representation. Many reports repeatedly mention foul smelling or unsafe water. Other reports have included letters written by children being held in detention centers. It is harrowing to see how many of these children write simply about wanting to go home. These conditions show that immigration detention is not only an administrative process. It is a process that has a direct physical, emotional, and psychological effect on the people being detained, especially children and families.
Conclusion
Behind every detention number, deportation flight, and policy change is a human being. These are parents, children, students, workers, asylum seekers, and members of our communities. Regardless of a person’s immigration status, no one should be stripped of their dignity or treated as if their life does not matter. When enforcement becomes more important than humanity, cruelty is no longer an unfortunate consequence of the system. It becomes part of the system itself.
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