Roughly 800 New Yorkers have landed in ICE custody in so-called "collateral" operations since August 2025, according to a fresh review of federal data. Immigrant advocates say the numbers show a widening dragnet that is scooping people up outside jails, courthouses and workplaces, not just the people ICE originally set out to find.
As reported by The City, ICE’s own logs list 811 arrests in New York City as collateral, roughly a quarter of the 3,191 total ICE arrests in the city since August. The City’s analysis found that most of those tagged as collateral had no criminal convictions or pending charges, a pattern critics say looks less like targeted enforcement and more like a sweep.
“The Trump administration is aimlessly, racially profiling people and detaining anyone to meet quotas,” Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, told The City. Yasmine Farhang of the Immigrant Defense Project told the outlet that state lawmakers should pass the New York For All Act to block local collusion with ICE and protect people who get caught up when agents show up looking for someone else.
What 'collateral' arrests are
Advocates use "collateral" to describe arrests ICE makes when agents arrive to detain a specific target and then take other people at the scene, whether that is at a courthouse, worksite or out on the street. A Washington Post analysis of government data shows that at-large arrests, those made in the community rather than inside jails, have surged, and that a large share of people picked up this way have no criminal convictions or pending charges. The Washington Post found that more than 60% of people in at-large arrests since June had no criminal convictions or pending charges.
Data and the national picture
Researchers at UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project have opened up government arrest records to journalists and lawyers and say they are seeing the same thing on a national level. As ICE ramps up street arrests, the share of people without criminal records has risen sharply. Berkeley Law’s Deportation Data Project and other independent analyses have also highlighted how the agency’s internal figures can clash with public statements by DHS that emphasize the criminal history of people arrested.
Advocates press state lawmakers
Immigrant-rights groups are seizing on the findings to push for statewide protections. The New York For All Act (S2235/A3506) would limit when state and local agencies can share information or otherwise assist federal deportation efforts, and advocates argue that passing it would help curb the kind of sweeps reflected in the new data. The New York Immigration Coalition and allied groups are pressing lawmakers in Albany to finally move the bill.
Legal and oversight fallout
Court challenges and oversight probes have followed similar enforcement pushes in other cities, and legal advocates say the newly available records are likely to become key evidence in lawsuits that argue ICE has stretched or blown past its statutory authority. Civil-rights groups and some local officials are already demanding detailed breakdowns of how many detentions happen at courthouses and outside jails, and whether any local policies or partnerships helped make them possible.
For now, lawyers and community organizations are urging people who worry about being targeted to document any encounters with ICE, seek legal help and track updates from immigrant-rights groups as lawmakers and courts sort out their next moves. City and state officials say they are watching the data and could push for legislative or policy changes later this spring.
