NY, NJ immigration enforcement offices now have quotas. It's 75 arrests a day or else, report says.

Arya Sundaram

Published Jan 27, 2025

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Never miss a story

Email address

By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .

Businesses at the Ocean Seafood Depot in Newark, New Jersey, where several workers were taken into custody on Thursday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images

Arya Sundaram

Published Jan 27, 2025

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

We rely on your support to make local news available to all

Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” initiative, off to a middling start in the New York metropolitan area, would ramp up significantly under new quotas reportedly put in place over the weekend by the White House.

Each U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field house – there are 25 scattered around the country, including in New York and New Jersey – would be required to make 75 enforcement arrests daily under newly established quotas, according to a Washington Post report. It cited four sources with knowledge of the directive and who said it was handed down Saturday.

The quotas, if achieved, would boost the number of daily ICE arrests nationwide to more than 1,800, well above the agency’s typical count. In September 2024, the latest month for which data is available, ICE arrested about 282 per day, and five per day in the New York City area. In 2023, ICE arrested about 415 people per day, and about 24 people in New York City.

The administration announced last week that it made 2,681 arrests in the first five days of Trump's new term, including nearly 1,000 on Sunday. There was no immediate indication that more than a handful of the first week’s arrests were made in the New York metropolitan area, although there has been no comprehensive accounting.

Three people were taken into custody Thursday during an enforcement action at a Newark seafood distributor, according to the Newark mayor’s office. Surveillance video obtained by ABC 7 showed ICE officers searching an apartment building in West New York. Asbury Park Police confirmed that ICE "conducted operations" within the Jersey Shore community, Patch reported on Monday.

ICE spokespeople in New York and nationally did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Scott Mechkowski, a former management program analyst for ICE in New York, said in an interview with Gothamist that the quotas would require “a total shift in resources.” He said, “No. 1 is bed space,” meaning the agency would need more detention capacity to accommodate those who were arrested.

New York state is home to an estimated 672,000 immigrants without legal status as of 2022, including 412,000 in New York City. The majority, 52%, of those immigrants have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, according to data from the Center for Migration Studies.

Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan has promised to first target criminals and gang members during the promised mass deportation.

The quotas were implemented because Trump has been disappointed with ICE enforcement actions thus far, according to the Washington Post report. The article said managers would be “held accountable” for missing targets, sparking concern that enforcement officers would arrest others, beyond the stated priority of criminals, to meet their quotas.

Trump has promised the largest deportation effort in the nation’s history. It would cost an estimated $88 billion a year, and result in a loss of 4.2% to 6.8% in the nation’s annual GDP, according to an October report by the American Immigration Council, an immigration rights and policy group. .

Tagged

Asylum Seekers

new york

Race And Justice Unit