Surge in ICE arrests around Memphis fueled by people who haven’t committed any crimes

President Donald Trump promised that his mass deportation campaign would target the “worst of the worst” people and make Americans safer, but nearly half of the arrests recorded in the Memphis area since January have been of people who have not been convicted of any crime, according to data analyzed by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested at least 400 people in the first seven months of the year, compared to 320 during the same period last year — a 25% increase, according to the data, which was provided by ICE in response to a FOIA lawsuit to Deportation Data Project. The vast majority of the people apprehended are men who hail from Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras or Nicaragua. 

Community leaders and organizers say the data match what they’ve heard and observed in recent months. Highly publicized raids have not occurred in Memphis, they say. But people have been picked up in quieter ways, sending waves of fear throughout communities. 

“We may not have seen in Memphis an operation targeting or detaining a hundred people, but what we do see is at least three people being detained every day,” said Mauricio Calvo, president and chief executive of Latino Memphis, a nonprofit that provides legal and other services to immigrants. “So at the end of the month it’s kind of the same thing.”

At least one out of every three people picked up by ICE was being held on suspicion of committing a crime, meaning they had been arrested but not yet convicted of the crime. Several law enforcement agencies throughout west Tennessee and north Mississippi participate in ICE’s Criminal Alien Program, an initiative that allows the agency to be notified when an undocumented immigrant is housed in local, state and federal lockups.  

The data accounts for activity within ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, the branch of the agency that focuses on detention and deportations. Notably, the data does not include activity in other divisions such as Customs and Border Protection. The data includes people apprehended in surrounding rural counties in west Tennessee and north Mississippi.     

Still, it’s one of the clearest pictures yet of how the crackdown on undocumented immigrants is unfolding in Memphis and the surrounding area. It also mirrors a trend found in other large cities. 

Sowing fear  

The wave of arrests began in the early days of Trump’s second term as he sought to fulfill a campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations. The administration quickly reversed policies that made it difficult for agents to apprehend people in so-called sensitive areas, like schools and churches, and courthouse arrests resumed.     

In some ways, local activists say, fear reached communities before ICE did. 

“At the beginning, everybody was flipping out all the time because every official-looking vehicle in any corner of the city got posted on social media and said ICE was raiding somewhere,” said Michael Phillips, who leads Su Casa Family Ministries.  

The nonprofit offers English classes for Spanish speakers. Last December, nearly 180 people were enrolled, but Phillips noticed a shift the following month as new classes were about to begin. The return enrollment was “incredibly low,” he said, so they started reaching out to people in text messages.  

“What we heard over and over again from those people was, ‘it’s not a good time. We don’t feel good about going out,’” Phillips said. “We have a significantly diminished percentage of our families who used to be in our English classes who just are not being responsive anymore.”  

He said enrollment is now cut in half. 

Watching ICE

The reality on the ground in Memphis has been less predictable compared to large cities like Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Miami. No large raids. No mass arrests. 

Instead, ICE’s operations appear more undercover; agents often accompany other federal agencies as they engage in unrelated operations, said Maria Oceja, a co-founder of Vecindarios 901, which began responding to local reports of ICE operations during Trump’s first term. In some cases, she said, the ICE agents look more like bounty hunters and have used traffic stops as a pretext to question people.

“We’ve been very active since the first week of his presidency this year,” said Oceja. The volunteer organization collects reports of ICE activity through its hotline and social media. 

“They’ve been racially profiling people, pulling them over, asking them questions about their status,” Oceja said. “And when the person can’t answer about their status, they have detained them.” 

In recent months, Oceja said people have shared troubling experiences: A mother arrested at an immigration office downtown with her children. A Hispanic man was questioned by agents in plainclothes before leaving his house for work early one morning. A man who was deported and later sent to Guantanamo Bay.   

Oceja said since July, she’d become more aware of people who unsuccessfully try to bail out an undocumented person from the Shelby County jail because ICE has requested the person be held through a process called a detainer request. 

Bailing an undocumented person out of jail is more challenging and in some cases not possible, as ICE requests more people held, Oceja said. At least one third of the arrests made this year in Memphis and surrounding areas was made through detainer requests, the ICE data showed. 

“ICE is picking up people who have not been officially convicted but have been charged with more serious crimes like domestic violence or public intoxication or robbery or whatever,” Oceja said. “Even though, supposedly, our system says people are innocent until proven guilty.” 

More capacity 

The enforcement operations are expected to rapidly expand. Congress gave ICE $75 billion over four years, which is about $18.7 billion a year starting in 2025. The new funding was added to the $10 billion the agency has already received for 2025, which nearly tripled its budget for this year, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. 

The injection of money has allowed the agency to go on a hiring spree, offering cash bonuses and student loan forgiveness to attract more agents. At the same time, the federal government is granting no-bid contracts to private prison operators to create spaces to house the thousands of people who are or will be detained. 

CoreCivic, a large Tennessee-based prison operator, reopened the West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason to use for ICE arrests this year, making it the closest facility to Memphis.

The lack of space could be one reason arrests haven’t been higher in the Memphis area since the Shelby County Jail is already overcrowded, said Calvo with Latino Memphis. The added capacity could clear the way for more aggressive enforcement raids, he said. 

Before the facility reopened in Mason, people were sent several miles away to ICE facilities in rural towns throughout Louisiana.

“When you have a hundred people, you have to think about what you are going to do with those people,” Calvo said. “I would imagine that we are going to see an increase of detentions in this area, not only in Memphis, but really the surrounding areas as well – potentially even Nashville.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the dollar amount of ICE’s budget, and the spelling of Michael Phillips last name. Additionally, the story has been updated to include the locations where undocumented people were apprehended.

Michael Finch II is the enterprise reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact him at mike.finch@mlk50.com