ICE Detains Over 4,800 Spouses of U.S. Citizens and Parents of 14,450 U.S.-Born Children in First Eight Months of 2025

In March, Maria Flores drove her husband Orlin Carrasco to a courthouse in Tennessee to pay fees related to a traffic ticket. After waiting for hours, she saw Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and realized Carrasco had been detained after paying his court fees. Carrasco entered the United States in 2013 as a 17-year-old unaccompanied minor from Honduras.

He has no removal order and no criminal convictions. He has remained in a detention center in Louisiana since the March incident. An ABC News analysis of ICE data found that only 3% of individuals detained by ICE during the first 14 months of the second Trump administration had a violent felony conviction.

More than 400,000 individuals with no violent criminal history have been affected by the immigration crackdown. -born children. More than 9,700 children saw at least one parent placed into immigration detention.

Parents of more than 7,000 children were eventually deported. U.S. citizens. During the first seven months of the term, more than 2,000 of these spouses were deported.

Carlos Della Valle was released from ICE detention in April after nine months in federal custody. U.S. citizen son. Carlos has lived in the United States for more than half his life.

The rise in detentions has prompted immigrant advocates to call for legislation to provide undocumented immigrants in mixed-status families a pathway to remain in the United States. , to push for the Dignity Act, a bipartisan bill pending in the House of Representatives sponsored by Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar and Democratic Rep.

Veronica Escobar. "We're doing this for those who have broken the law but have given us their lives," Rep. Salazar said. "They're here. " "This will be the choice for my party," Rep. Escobar said. " Carrasco's attorney Alexandra Lopez said his detention is unlawful.