Overview
- New ICE datasets released Monday, obtained through the Deportation Data Project, show 4,030 arrests in Minnesota with 63% involving people with no convictions or pending charges, and nearly 200 arrests in Maine with only 11 people recorded as having a criminal record.
- Many of those taken into custody were pursuing immigration cases or doing routine check-ins, and at least a quarter of the people arrested in Maine challenged their detention in federal court with many later released.
- In Minnesota, arrests accelerated after ICE agent Jonathan Ross killed Renee Nicole Good on January 7, with daily totals jumping during the following weeks before tapering by mid-February, according to the arrest logs.
- Maine’s five‑day sweep shows unresolved gaps in official accounts, with ICE listing 190 arrests after earlier saying 206 and labeling nearly 90 people as “targeted” even though very few had criminal convictions, and only 14 cases carried any threat level tag.
- The makeup of those arrested did not match public rhetoric, with relatively few Somali nationals recorded in Minnesota and the largest groups in Maine coming from Angola and Ecuador.