Trump’s Immigration Crackdown in Colorado, Explained in 3 Charts

Federal immigration agents arrested three times more people in Colorado per day on average last year compared with 2024, marking an aggressive shift in enforcement under President Donald Trump, according to new data.

About 12 people each day were taken to federal detention facilities in 2025, up from four in 2024. Even without high-profile enforcement surges like those seen in Illinois, Minnesota, New York and California, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested about 4,160 people in Colorado in 2025, an increase of 281% compared with 1,091 total people arrested in 2024. Arrests in Colorado reached their highest level in April 2025 and have since fallen slightly.

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{snip} While Trump vowed to target people with criminal records, data obtained by the Sun shows that most people arrested in Colorado last year have never been convicted of a crime.

About 65% of the people arrested by ICE officers so far under Trump had no prior criminal convictions. And among those with criminal convictions, only 5% of those convictions were for what the Federal Bureau of Investigation designates as violent crimes (murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault).

Of those arrested with criminal convictions, the most common convictions are for driving under the influence, assault, and traffic offenses.

That’s despite Trump’s campaign promise to target immigrants who are violent criminals.

The data, obtained from ICE and published by the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law’s Deportation Data Project, illustrates the dragnet approach to arrests in Colorado during the first year of Trump’s presidency and the new landscape that immigrants in Colorado have been navigating. {snip}

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