LOS ANGELES - Immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area more than tripled during the first year of the second Trump Administration, part of a sweeping escalation that funneled record numbers of people into detention, eroded due process, and spread fear through immigrant communities across Southern California, according to a new report from the Immigrants’ Rights Policy Clinic, part of the Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. 

The report, Loss and Resistance: Los Angeles One Year into Trump’s Immigration Agenda, examines how a flurry of interlocking federal policies—expanding interior enforcement, increasing detention, and reshaping the immigration courts—have built on one another in service of an anti-immigrant agenda that prioritizes increased deportation numbers over following the law. The effects have landed hard in cities like Los Angeles, home to one of the largest immigrant populations in the country.  

For families, the toll is measured day by day. “He’s the sole provider of our family,” said Ana, a Los Angeles resident identified by a pseudonym in the report, describing her father’s decision to keep working despite the raids. “Every day that my father goes to work, I really hope he comes back.” 

The report also documents how Angelenos have fought back by mobilizing community, filing lawsuits, enacting protective policies, and expanding services. 

“Los Angeles serves as a cautionary tale of how immigration policies can be weaponized in the service of an Administration determined to foment fear and cruelty in spite of what the law requires,” said Talia Inlender, Deputy Director of the Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy. “But Los Angeles also shows how the protection of immigrant communities can act as a crucial site of resistance for localities equally determined to push back—recognizing that the battle being waged over immigration today is also a fight to defend the democratic values necessary to protect us all.” 

The report draws on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data secured by the Deportation Data Project through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the Miñana Center, in-depth interviews with attorneys, advocates, and impacted community members, policy analysis, and direct observation of immigration court proceedings.  

“This Administration has consistently demonized immigrants as ‘invaders’ and tried to erase their humanity and the essential roles that immigrants play in our communities and economies. And in pursuing this agenda, the Administration has acted with blatant disregard for what immigration law and the U.S. Constitution requires,” said Hiroshi Motomura, Faculty Co-Director of the Miñana Center. “This report chronicles how this happened in Los Angeles, but it’s a nationwide pattern that threatens justice for everyone.” 

The report’s key findings include: 

• Immigration enforcement surged in Los Angeles. In the first year of the second Trump Administration, interior apprehensions in the Los Angeles area more than tripled compared to the final year of the Biden Administration. Arrests peaked in summer 2025, when 2,453 people were arrested in June alone.  

• Interior enforcement was unleashed with few guardrails. Congress tripled ICE’s budget, while the Trump Administration gutted oversight agencies, rolled back protections for “sensitive locations” like schools and courthouses, deployed “roving patrols” that began stopping people based on apparent race or language, and expanded expedited removal to reach people anywhere in the country. 

• Detention became a cornerstone of enforcement and conditions deteriorated. The Adelanto ICE Processing Center, in the Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles, grew from fewer than 10 people in 2024 to more than 1,500 by mid-2025. Deaths in ICE custody reached their highest level in decades, at least 33 nationwide, triple the prior year, including four at Adelanto alone in late 2025 and early 2026. 

• Angelenos have felt significant pressure to leave before cases are decided.  “Voluntary” departures and returns in the Los Angeles area increased more than one-hundred-fold compared to 2024. This surge suggests that increased enforcement is not only leading to more arrests and detentions, but also that it is exerting pressure on individuals to agree to leave the country even before their case is decided. 

• The immigration courts were reshaped into sites of enforcement. Between January 2025 and March 2026, ICE arrested over 300 people in Los Angeles area immigration courts. The Department of Justice fired more than 100 immigration judges whom it viewed as insufficiently aligned with its deportation agenda, at least 35 in California, while motions to dismiss asylum cases without a hearing jumped from 60 nationwide in January 2025 to more than 17,000 in January 2026.  

• Los Angeles responded with resistance and resilience. Rapid response networks, court watch efforts, schools, and legal defense programs such as RepresentLA mobilized to support families, elected leaders took steps to prevent local resources from being used to assist in federal immigration enforcement efforts, and Los Angeles became the site of multiple lawsuits challenging the legality of the Trump Administration’s policies, including Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem, the first major challenge to ICE’s use of racial profiling in “roving patrols.” 

Read the full report, Loss and Resistance: Los Angeles One Year into Trump’s Immigration Agenda, here: https://bit.ly/laraidsreport