Sources

Government data on arrests, detentions, and deportations provided by ICE in response to a FOIA request, processed by the Deportation Data Project (DDP) and analyzed by Stop AAPI Hate. Deaths in ICE custody are collected from ICE's Detainee Death Reporting website.

Methodology

We use DDP's processed arrests joined with detention stays dataset and detention stints dataset to create A/PI ICE Tracker dashboards on A/PI arrests, detentions, and deportations.

Counts

To count arrests, detentions, and deportations, we use DDP's filter to remove potential duplicates. We also remove rows without a corresponding unique ID to align with both DDP's and UCLA's methodologies. We include ICE arrests that did or did not result in detention or deportation. We count only detentions and deportations that can be traced to an ICE arrest; those with no corresponding ICE arrest record are not included. Counts reflect the total number of arrests, detention entries, and deportations, not the number of people. One person can be arrested, detained, or deported more than once.

Asian and Pacific Islander Data

To standardize our analysis, we use ICE's "citizenship country" field to identify actions involving A/PI people because ICE does not consistently include race data in its releases or collect detailed A/PI ethnicity data.

We group countries currently present in ICE's data into the following subregions:

Asia

  • Central Asia: Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
  • East Asia: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan
  • South Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
  • Southeast Asia: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam

Pacific Islands

  • Melanesia: Fiji, Papua New Guinea
  • Micronesia: Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau
  • Polynesia: French Polynesia, Samoa, Tonga

"Origin" Language

While we use the "citizenship country" field to identify A/PI-related records, we do not use ICE's citizenship terminology. This is because ICE's "citizenship country" category does not always reflect a person's actual citizenship status. Refugees and stateless people may not be recognized as citizens by the listed "citizenship country." Throughout our A/PI ICE Tracker, we say "country of origin" and "people from _____" instead of "citizenship country" and "citizens."

Age

Since ICE only collects birth year, not birth date, we estimate age by subtracting birth year from the year of arrest, detention, or deportation.

Trump v. Biden Comparisons

To compare administrations, we use time periods of equal length. For the current Trump administration, we analyze data from Inauguration Day (January 20, 2025) through the most recent date available. We then compare this with the same number of days under the previous administration, ending January 19, 2025.

Length of Stay

We measure the length of a detention stay as the number of days between its book-in and book-out dates, counting detentions that began on or after Inauguration Day. We do not count detentions that are still underway, in other words, where there is no book-out date. We calculate the non-A/PI comparison the same way, over the same period.

Detention Stints

A stint is one placement at a single facility and one detention may include several stints because people are moved between facilities. For example, if someone is detained in California, then moved to a facility in Texas, then moved back to a facility in California (either the same facility or a different one), this counts as one detention made up of three stints: two in California and one in Texas. To calculate the average number of stints per detention we divide the total number of stints by the total number of detentions that began on or after Inauguration Day. Our detention map counts stints rather than detentions, which is why state totals may add up to more than the total number of detentions for any given group.

Out-of-State Detentions

We use the detention stints dataset to identify all states where a person was held during a single detention. We compare these states with the state where the person was apprehended. If the person was held in at least one state other than the apprehension state, we count the detention as one out-of-state detention.

Third Country Deportations

We count a deportation as a third country deportation when the country a person was deported to is different from their "citizenship country." We do not group Hong Kong or Macau with China. If someone is from Hong Kong or Macau and deported to China, or vice versa, we count this as a third country deportation. Deportations where ICE did not report the destination country are not counted.

Disclaimers

Data does not include actions by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Due to data limitations, missing data, and potential errors in ICE's datasets, reported results are estimates and may be imprecise.

Last updated: September 15, 2026