Arrests and removals by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Hawaiʻi through October were quadruple those in all of 2024, based on ICE operations data.

The exact numbers for the full calendar year won’t be available until mid-March due to delays in data releases by the Department of Homeland Security. But the data available for 2025 show ICE agents in Hawaiʻi conducted 194 arrests between Jan. 8 and Oct. 15, up from 52 arrests the year before under the Biden administration.

Those numbers are certain to rise. They do not include dozens of arrests made on Kauaʻi in early November at six properties in Kapahi and Kalāheo used as workforce housing by a cleaning contractor, Hawaii Care and Cleaning Inc.

Citizens of Mexico made up nearly a quarter of all those detained by ICE in Hawaiʻi so far in 2025, followed by Chinese nationals, and citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia. But more than 40 nationalities were represented.

Arrests increasingly occurred when people came to ICE offices for mandatory check-ins or turned up at state courthouses on matters unrelated to immigration, Neribel Chardon, a senior staff attorney with The Legal Clinic, said Monday.

Chardon, one of a handful of pro bono attorneys in Hawaiʻi, said ICE personnel can usually find some grounds for arresting someone. That can include failing to update contact details with the immigration court or missing a notice to appear.

Those decisions are hard for attorneys to appeal, she said, “because the person failed to comply with their obligations, and they ended up in detention.”

She said she had not seen an increase in arrests in immigration court as had been reported in other states.

The data was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy Deportation Data Project and dates back to Sept.1, 2023. Arrests or apprehensions made by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at ports of entry, including airports, are not included in the count.

Based on the available 2025 data, there were an average of 20 arrests per month in Hawaiʻi last year, compared to four per month in 2024. The uptick began immediately after the Trump inauguration on Jan. 20. By May, ICE had conducted 128 arrests in Hawaiʻi; 31 arrests were made over the same period in 2024.

Until the 44 Kauaʻi arrests in November, May was officially the month with the highest number of arrests – 34. Almost all of them took place on May 6 and 7 when ICE agents detained workers from Central America at coffee plantations on the Big Island.

The data shows that most of the arrests this year were “at-large”, meaning they occurred in public spaces such as courts, streets and workplaces, rather than in facilities where people are already incarcerated.

The ICE data does not specify where most of the at-large arrests occurred.

Asked for comment, ICE responded with an emailed statement last week that arrests reflected the agency’s “mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens to make America safe. So far, DHS has arrested over 622,000 illegal aliens, and we have no plans of stopping or slowing down.”

After that initial surge in immigration arrests in Hawaiʻi in the first five months of the Trump administration, arrests dropped off from June through October, when agents made 61 arrests — or about half as many. That ran counter to the trend nationally, where the rate of administrative arrests increased by about 60%, according to analysis by The Washington Post.

Some jurisdictions saw far greater spikes.

The District of Columbia saw a fivefold increase in arrests, the highest in the nation according to the Deportation Data Project, while New Mexico saw a fourfold increase.

Montana was the only other state that saw a fall in administrative arrests similar to Hawaiʻi, but the number of arrests in Montana and Hawaiʻi is relatively small compared to states like Texas, skewing percentage comparisons.

ICE media did not respond to a question about the downturn. Analysis of the same data by the Prison Policy Institute found that arrest rates were higher in states that fully cooperated with the Trump administration, which has set a goal of 3,000 immigration arrests per day.

Current estimates are that ICE is detaining 1,000 people per day, and there are approximately 605,000 people in detention nationwide.

Forced Removals And Voluntary Departures Up

Other indicators published by the Deportation Data Project and the tracreports.org site at Syracuse University also show how overall increases in immigration enforcement under the Trump administration have played out in the islands.

Those include an uptick in both the number of requests by ICE to Hawaiʻi authorities, such as county police, to detain individuals for 48 hours. By mid-October ICE in Hawaiʻi had requested 71 detainers, 22 more than the 49 requested during 2024.

Detainer requests are the legal mechanism for holding individuals until ICE agents can take them into custody for alleged immigration or criminal violations. In some mainland jurisdictions, local law enforcement has notified ICE about individuals in their custody who they suspect might also have immigration violations, under memoranda of understanding with the Department of Homeland Security.

Local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration actions has been controversial across the islands. In response, representatives of local law enforcement said last April they were not actively participating in immigration enforcement operations under existing agreements with DHS — other than complying with the detainers.

Detainers for people being held in cells at the Honolulu Police Department and the Oʻahu Community Correctional Facility make up over 40% of the running total for 2025. There was also a large increase in the average daily number of inmates held in the Honolulu federal detention center, which houses ICE detainees, including some from the mainland.

The average daily number of ICE detainees at FDC Honolulu in January 2025 was 15. At the end of November, it was 81, according to agency data published on tracreports.org.

As of Oct. 15, ICE data showed 218 individuals had been booked into FDC Honolulu, exceeding the 130 detainees booked in during 2024. That number includes detainees arrested by ICE on the mainland housed at the Honolulu facility while awaiting proceedings.

In July, ICE issued a departmental memo requiring the mandatory detention of all immigrants who entered the United States without inspection, a move that also restricts their access to bond hearings before an immigration judge.

Chardon said it has been increasingly difficult to get her clients released on bond under the revised guidelines, even though there was evidence that federal judges were pushing back on the mandatory detention policy, according to reporting by Politico.

The federal Bureau of Prisons agreed to provide 125 beds to the Department of Homeland Security under a new agreement approved in February, Civil Beat confirmed. That’s resulted in ICE detainees from as far away as Florida being temporarily housed there, local immigration attorneys said.

Of those booked into the Honolulu facility in 2025 up to mid-October, 121 were detained for alleged immigration violations, 66 had previous criminal convictions, and 31 had pending criminal charges.

The data also shows that more people were removed by ICE or chose to leave Hawaiʻi voluntarily in 2025 than in 2024, however the total won’t be available until mid-March.

The final disposition of 224 people released from FDC Honolulu so far in 2025 is shown in a dataset of “Detention Stints” — a log of when detainees were booked in and booked out, and the reason for their release from Honolulu, including transfers to a facility elsewhere. That number includes people arrested in 2024 and released in 2025.

As of Oct. 15, 106 people had been deported from Hawaiʻi, compared to 113 forced removals in all of 2024. But using a daily rate to measure the difference in the rates of removals year-over-year, 143 people could be expected to have been deported by Dec. 31 — a 35% increase over 2024.

Already, far more people have chosen to depart voluntarily in 2025 than in 2024, with 30 leaving so far, compared to two individuals the previous year.

The Trump administration is promoting a self-deportation program that offers undocumented people a $3,000 payment and a free flight to their destination.

“We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right, legal way to live the American dream,” the ICE emailed statement said.

Chardon said that voluntary self-removal could be risky for undocumented people looking to get safely out of the U.S. because they could still be arrested and detained if Customs and Border Patrol agents at the airport determine they had entered the country illegally.

Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly stated the number of nationalities of detainees in Hawaiʻi. It is 41.

“Data Dive” is supported in part by the Will J. Reid Foundation.