Reporting by Max Schaeffer
Data visualizations by Clay Ludwig
Editing assistance from Eden Binder
Capital News Service
Since day 1 of Donald Trump’s second term, one of his main priorities has been an aggressive crackdown on immigration. In Maryland, over 17% of the population was born overseas. The state is seeing a major increase in ICE arrests.
CNS analyzed public data from the Deportation Data Project and found that numbers are skyrocketing during Trump’s second year in office.
Between Jan. 20 and March 10 of 2025, ICE made 486 arrests in Maryland. In that same time frame in 2026, it has made 1,250. At that rate, the number of arrests this year would surpass last year’s total by July.
Maryland immigration lawyer Hemedes Chicas told us this is consistent with what he’s seeing.
“They have one singular goal which is to get bodies in, and that seems to be the goal of the administration at large is just get bodies, get the stats up in terms of people being detained and removed.”
ICE is also making arrests in Maryland at a rate 4.3 times higher than it was during the final year of the Biden administration.
According to Chicas, one reason for the uptick is an expansion of who ICE is targeting.
“They would be lying if they say we’re only going after criminals and dangerous people. They’re going after everyone who is in the country unlawfully or who is otherwise deportable … from their point of view.”
Where are those people from? Central America. The most common countries of citizenship are Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
But once they have been deported, they haven’t all been sent home. From Jan. 20, 2025 to March 10 of this year, there were 194 recorded instances of Maryland ICE arrestees being sent to a country they are not a citizen of.
The most common destination for those people was Mexico. 149 people who are citizens of other countries like El Salvador and Guatemala were sent there.
