Mass deportations hinge on racial profiling, evidence shows

ICE street – A new investigation into ICE arrests in the New York City area finds a pattern of racial targeting: 93% of street arrests involved Latinos despite Latinos making up 66% of the local undocumented population, and court records describe agents detaining people be

On a February afternoon. ICE agents circled the same Staten Island block multiple times while searching for a 25-year-old Mexican man named Julio. They detained a 36-year-old Guatemalan man named Isaias. then a 21-year-old Guatemalan man named Juan—both described as “a male who was believed to be the intended target.” When the agents later arrested a third person. a 47-year-old man named Alejandro. the reason was oddly specific: he left the building the agents had been monitoring.

All three were taken into custody. The first two left the country after being detained.

That sequence—detain someone while looking for someone else. then explain the mistake as a resemblance to the intended target—sits at the center of a broader investigation into how enforcement is playing out on the ground in New York and beyond. The investigation, based on court records, found 430 street arrests in the metropolitan area between October 2025 and mid-March. Of those arrests, 93 percent involved Latinos, even though Latinos make up 66 percent of the local undocumented population.

The arrests weren’t just concentrated; they were also described as mismatches. Agents grabbed people while looking for other people, and detained them because they supposedly looked “sort of like” the person they were after.

One man described being called a “maldito Mexicano,” or a “fucking Mexican,” by ICE agents while he was being arrested.

The picture is built from more than one incident. The investigation reports that. time after time. agents apprehended people they claimed looked like their actual target even when the resemblance went little beyond skin color or accent. In several instances, people were detained even after it became evident they had been the wrong person.

This is happening as federal authority expands and the rules governing profiling have shifted at the highest level. Nationwide. ICE carried out more than 400. 000 arrests in the first 14 months of Donald Trump’s second term. according to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. A Cato Institute analysis found that a growing number of these apprehensions involve Latinos with no criminal past or outstanding deportation orders—an indication. in that analysis. that street-level stops are operating outside lawful boundaries.

The legal backstop, though, has changed. In a 6-3 decision last September, the Supreme Court ruled that racial profiling is permissible in immigration enforcement. The ruling said ICE agents can stop people based on their “apparent race or ethnicity,” language, or accent.

The investigation also focuses on something residents of major cities tend to feel long before any deportation paperwork arrives: the way arrests ripple through neighborhoods. Even when arrests don’t quickly end in deportations. the detentions can pull people out of their communities and into remote detention centers. isolating them from legal support.

To get out of ICE detention, the investigation reports that a person needs to file a habeas corpus petition. But the petition has to be filed in the jurisdiction where the person is detained. That matters because someone arrested in New York—where federal courts are typically friendlier to immigrants—then transferred in Louisiana has only a brief window to seek release. The process, the reporting emphasizes, isn’t clear or obvious.

The City’s review of 1,200 habeas petitions filed between October 2025 and March of this year found a rise in street arrests tied to the recurring pattern documented in the investigation.

ICE has faced backlash before, and the administration says it has changed its approach. After Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota drew widespread criticism—where a federal judge recently ruled that agents made warrantless arrests largely based on race—Border security czar Tom Homan said ICE is now using “smarter enforcement” in the Twin Cities and elsewhere.

But the New York records described in the investigation suggest that “smarter” may mean less visible rather than less aggressive. The reporting says ICE can be “eager” to arrest anyone it finds while searching for targets.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who took over after Kristi Noem’s ouster, has said he wants to keep ICE out of the news and has signaled a more targeted, less bombastic approach to enforcement. Yet ICE has not stopped roving the streets; agents are doing their work more quietly.

Earlier in Trump’s second term. ICE agents were arresting people in federal courthouses during or after immigration hearings—an approach that prompted outcry from legal observers and advocates and was easily documented by journalists. Street arrests, the investigation reports, are harder to capture and easier to overlook.

In February. after agents were spotted in Bushwick. a predominantly Latino Brooklyn neighborhood. volunteers surrounded them and blew whistles as an arrest unfolded. They pounded on the agents’ car windows and even managed to get the man’s contact information before he was taken away. According to the investigation’s reporting. the volunteers connected the man with a lawyer who helped him get out of ICE detention.

Even with that help, the fear persists. The randomness of the arrests means anyone could be targeted. And the investigation says it won’t be just anyone—ICE is arresting people based on the color of their skin.

That is the central tension in the story: enforcement may be described as smarter, targeted, and quieter, but the mechanism described in the records runs the same way—agents identify and detain people through racial resemblance rather than concrete proof of who they’re actually seeking.

The broader machinery behind that street-level power is also expanding. The investigation describes the push to deputize local law enforcement through 287(g) agreements. a program that deputizes police for immigration enforcement. Under Trump’s first day back in office. Trump issued an executive order requiring the DHS secretary to maximize these agreements.

By February, there were 1,412 active 287(g) partnerships across the country, according to NPR, nearly all of which were signed in 2025.

The investigation breaks down three types of 287(g) arrangements. The jail enforcement and warrant service officer models involve transferring people from local jails to ICE custody. The task force model allows officers to stop people for suspected immigration violations.

The Obama administration suspended the task force model in 2012 amid rampant allegations of racial profiling and civil rights violations in some communities. including Maricopa County. Arizona. where then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio—an early adopter of the 287(g) program—implemented an aggressive. nakedly racist enforcement regime.

Trump brought back the task force model, which the investigation says makes up the majority of new agreements. A DHS spokesperson told NPR that officers and deputies who sign up for the task force model receive 40 hours of training on topics including immigration and civil rights law. along with ICE’s Use of Force policy. Under previous administrations, the investigation says 287(g) training took about a month.

Texas and Florida lead the expansion. The investigation says both states passed legislation requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with DHS. and in Florida. even Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers are now scanning Flock cameras to assist ICE. The Trump administration is seeking to expand 287(g) everywhere, not just in states with high Latino populations.

The investigation also describes how 287(g) agreements have exploded across the Midwest and how DHS has begun offering financial incentives for officers who participate in 287(g) programs, including monthly bonuses up to $1,000.

Nayna Gupta of the American Immigration Council described the bonus as “essentially a bounty” for immigrants.

In this landscape, the consequences are not only legal—they are practical. Arrests can funnel people out of communities and into remote detention centers where it’s harder to mount a timely defense. And the investigation’s records suggest that when arrests begin with racial resemblance. the path from street stop to detention can be swift even when the intended target is elsewhere.

Taken together. the incidents in New York and the expansion of local enforcement partnerships nationwide point to a single hard problem: if enforcement is built to identify people through their appearance and accent rather than reliable identifiers. then the burden falls on entire communities—especially those already most likely to be read as targets.

ICE deportations racial profiling New York arrests habeas corpus 287(g) Markwayne Mullin Tom Homan Latino neighborhoods Supreme Court immigration ruling