Crimes Against Humanity: Tens of Thousands Under Mass Internment, MANY with No Criminal History

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As of January 25, 2026, there are approximately 70,766 individuals in ICE detention, with a significant portion having no criminal convictions.

Judges Have Rebuked Trump’s Mass Detention of Immigrants Thousands of Times - Mother Jones. A new Reuters investigation found hundreds of judges intervening in the prolonged detention of immigrants without criminal records.

Hundreds of judges across the nation have ruled over 4,400 times that... Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement arm is detaining people unlawfully, according to a new Reuters review of court documents. And that’s just since October. 

The Trump administration’s immense increase in detainments rests, in part, on their decision to detain people while their immigration cases are moving through the system—a departure from previous administrations’ interpretation of immigration law. This has led to a steep increase in immigrants petitioning the courts to be released, as Reuters reports, and the thousands of rulings finding that these prolonged detainments were unlawful. 

And Trump is often keeping these individuals locked up indefinitely.

Earlier this month, the conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals handed the Trump administration a win. In a 2-1 ruling, that court held that the administration could hold people whose cases are actively going through the system. It’s a key win, as the circuit oversees Texas and Louisiana, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement has some of its most populated detention centers. 

The number of people kept in detainment who have no criminal record—the population petitioning the courts to be released—has increased exponentially under Trump’s second administration. According to a recent report from the American Immigration Council, the Trump administration’s arrest practices have led to a 2,450 percent increase in people with no criminal record being held in ICE detention on any given day.