(NewsNation) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have made tens of thousands of arrests in the country’s largest cities this year as part of President Donald Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown.
But while migrant arrest numbers remain robust in places like Miami, Dallas and Chicago, the Pacific Northwest has lagged despite an influx of federal immigration officers and agents being deployed to places like Portland.
The Trump administration has sent federal agents to Portland and Seattle, where anti-ICE protests have broken out and, at times, have become violent. Despite that, ICE has only logged about 4,000 arrests in the Pacific Northwest, data obtained by NewsNation shows.
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That compares to 29,000 arrests this year in Miami, 22,000 apprehensions in Dallas and 17,000 in Chicago. Despite the relatively low arrest totals, however, a suspected known member of the Sureño gang, which is also known as Sur 13, was arrested near the U.S.-Canada border.
Federal agents confront protesters outside of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building on September 28 in Portland, Oregon. In a Truth Social post on September 27th, President Trump authorized the deployment of military troops to “protect war-ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” (Photo by Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images)
Jesus Alejandro Lopez-Ruiz remains in ICE custody after he was charged with assaulting a federal law enforcement officer. A recent Pew Research study showed that about 5% of Washington state’s population is made up of immigrants who Department of Homeland Security officials say entered the United States illegally.
Since 2015, the number of migrants living illegally in the U.S. who call Washington home has jumped from 250,000 to 375,000 in 2023.
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Of those migrants, 126,023 are currently on ICE’s docket for deportation, 111,149 of whom have previous criminal convictions, according to DHS. Another 27,218 have previously been ordered to leave the United States but remain in the country.
White House border czar Tom Homan has said previously that a surge of federal officers and agents will be deployed to the Pacific Northwest. Although ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol both have officers and agents in place in Portland and Seattle, the arrest numbers do not necessarily reflect that kind of presence.
Like in other regions of the country, ICE has maintained a steady presence of immigration enforcement officers in areas like Portland and Seattle for years. That will continue, DHS officials say, as the Trump administration continues to push for more arrests and deportations of those migrants who officials say are in the country illegally.
As that happens, though, many migrants who have been ordered to appear in immigration courts are not showing up for their scheduled hearings after waiting years to appear before a judge. The Migration Policy Institute reports that up to 70% of those who have been given notices to appear in court are skipping hearings that have been backlogged for years.
Trump’s spending bill appropriated $170 billion over four years for enforcement but only $844 million for immigration courts in 2025. At least 139 judges have been fired, transferred, or taken early retirement by the Trump administration, which, according to the MPI report, could delay cases further.
While Trump’s major spending bill allocated billions of dollars for federal immigration enforcement operations, migrant detention and federal officers, funding has not been devoted to keeping cases moving along in the nation’s immigration courts.
Migrants who entered the United States seeking asylum under the Biden administration are being given court appearance dates four years in the future, as the nation’s immigration courts have 3.8 million pending cases. Of those, 65% are connected to migrants seeking asylum.