‘There’s Fear’: ICE Arrests Surge in Nebraska With 329% Increase in 2025

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Nebraska is not insulated from the shock waves. The state saw a 329% year-over-year increase in ICE arrests from 2024 to 2025, when Trump’s second term began.

In the first 10 months of 2024, federal agents detained 291 people in Nebraska. In the same 2025 time frame, the number grew to 1,246. That’s according to federal data obtained by the Deportation Data Project, an online data set compiled by a group of lawyers and academics working through the University of California Berkley’s Law School.

As detainments increase, so do calls to the legal assistance hotline. To meet the need, an independent hotline was created specifically for detainees and their loved ones. Hotline employees take down the callers’ information and add them to a waitlist for an attorney consultation.

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Over the past several weeks, the ACLU has filed up to a dozen lawsuits on behalf of immigrants held in a Nebraska detention center. The organization’s clients include a Schuyler woman, a 27-year-old DACA recipient who was recently released, and 10-year Omaha resident Jorge Calderon Rivera.

Calderon is a Salvadorian citizen and father of three who has been in the United States since 2016. He has no criminal record and is being represented by the ACLU and CIRA.

His first interaction with ICE agents came in mid-January during a traffic stop in Omaha by agents in an unmarked car, according to the ACLU.

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His situation isn’t unique. A November report from nonpartisan data collection nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse found that, like Calderon, more than 73% of all detainees nationwide were never convicted of a criminal offense.

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Last year, 196, or 16%, of people detained in Nebraska had no criminal record, 69% had a criminal record, and 15% had a criminal charge, but had not been convicted of a crime.

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