Arizona police cooperate with ICE, but deportations remain low

PHOENIX (AZFamily) —A new report shows that local police here in Arizona and across the country are largely cooperating with federal immigration agents.

They have been alerting ICE agents when police suspect someone they have arrested is in this country illegally. But the issue, according to the report by TRAC immigration, is that immigration agents are not taking those suspects into custody or deporting them.

“Detainers” are when a jail detains someone suspected of being here illegally and ICE agents are alerted to come get them. The number of detainers are up under the Trump administration.

But, here in Arizona, ICE agents are only coming to get those suspects 37% of the time. Which means, two of every three suspected undocumented immigrants avoid ICE custody and possible deportation.

During the first Trump administration, the report shows that ICE assumed custody of the person being detained 62% of the time. Right now, that figure overall is just at 14%.

“I think that they’re definitely trying to use fear as a tactic to get people to self-deport,” immigration attorney Darius Amiri said. He thinks the detainers could be encouraging people to leave the country on their own. “But just because there are detainers being issued does not mean that person is ultimately being deported, and what I would say is I think there’s a lot more attention on immigration in general since Trump was reelected,” he said.

In addition to encouraging self deportation, part of the reason the numbers could be lower, Amiri says, is because the process of deportation takes a while. “Like I have clients who were brought in ICE custody before COVID, 2019 or 2018, and they still haven’t gotten to their final trial date and and they’re doing everything by the book,” he said.

Meanwhile, Arizona’s Family spoke with a former ICE agent, who wished to remain anonymous. “I think that number is severely skewed, because it does not sound right,” he said.

The report from Syracuse concludes that the rise in ICE detainers while deportations are declining means immigration holds are ineffective.

But this former ICE agent is pushing back on that claim. He believes the deportations will likely increase over time as migrants go through the legal system and exhaust their due process rights. “The only way, the only two ways they would be leaving quickly is if they have a final order already or they say, ‘OK, I’m here illegally. Just send me home,’” he said.

The report also states that most targets of detainers had no criminal convictions. Only 28% were convicted and most were for traffic violations or DUI. During the first month of the Trump administration, only 1.6% of the people who were detained by ICE ended up being deported.

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.

Copyright 2025 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.