How we analyzed the data on ICE detainers, arrests and deportations in Florida

To examine how local jails are fueling an immigration crackdown in Florida, we analyzed hundreds of thousands of federal immigration arrest, detainer and deportation records. Local jail records also informed our reporting; however, because of differences in how county sheriff’s offices maintain that data, we did not use those records to produce statistics for the story.

Below, we outline the methodology behind our findings.

The federal immigration records came from individual-level Immigration and Customs Enforcement data obtained and published by the Data Deportation Project.

We used the late July 2025 detainers data to identify how many ICE detainers were issued to county jails statewide and within the Suncoast from President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January through the end of July. We compared those figures to the same time period in 2024 and calculated the percent change, as well as the year-over-year increase in ICE detainers nationwide.

For findings on how common ICE’s tactic of arresting people from local jails is, we used the late July 2025 arrests data and grouped by apprehension method. We counted arrests tagged with “CAP Local Incarceration.” The Criminal Alien Program allows ICE agents to arrest immigrants who are in custody of another law enforcement agency. These figures may be an undercount, as arrests tagged “287(g) Program” could also include some arrests through local jails.

We further filtered arrests by “apprehension criminality” to determine how many immigrants who were arrested by ICE through local jails had pending charges.

We also looked at data on criminal charges for people who had been deported after being arrested by ICE in Florida. That information appeared in the late June removals data. The Deportation Data Project cautions that this dataset is likely an incomplete picture of deportations.

Journalists Anna Flagg and Christie Thompson of The Marshall Project created a key that categorized criminal charges as either nonviolent or violent/potentially violent for their reporting on deportations. We used that key to categorize charges for people who were arrested by ICE in Florida and later deported.

As part of our fact checking process, a data journalist outside our organization who did not work on this story reviewed the code that produced our analysis and confirmed the findings.

Kara Newhouse is an investigative data reporter for Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Reach her at kara@suncoastsearchlight.org.