Under Trump, Immigration Arrests Surge in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey

Immigration arrests surged in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey during the first 14 months of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Immigration arrests in Pennsylvania more than quadrupled during the first 14 months of President Donald Trump’s second term, rising from 2,004 during the final 14 months of the Biden administration to 8,796 between Jan. 20, 2025, and March 11, 2026, according to an Associated Press analysis of the Deportation Data Project from University of California, Berkeley.

Immigration arrests have more than tripled in Delaware in the same time period.

In New Jersey, there has been a 159% increase in immigration arrests in the past 14 months.

New Jersey and Pennsylvania rank in the top 10 states with the most immigration arrests from when Trump took office in January 2025 to March 11, 2026.

New Jersey ranks eighth in the country, while Pennsylvania ranks 10th.

Pennsylvania is home to Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the largest immigration detention center in the Northeast with a capacity of 1,876 detainees. Delaney Hall Correctional Facility, another major immigration detention facility, is the largest in New Jersey. There is no immigrant detention center in Delaware.

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More than 70% of immigration detainees have no criminal conviction, per data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group that compiles immigration detention data via records requests.

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Lee said the spike in arrests in Pennsylvania during the last year and a half could be attributable to the exponential growth of collaboration agreements between local law enforcement and ICE under the federal agency’s 287(g) program.

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There are no 287(g) collaboration agreements in New Jersey and Delaware. {snip}

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