New Data Shows AAPI Californians Arrested At Alarming Rates
The USC Equity Research Institute’s (ERI) latest analysis on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Californians confirmed what community organizations have been experiencing for months: ICE arrests in our communities have been unprecedented and devastating.
For our organization, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Civic Empowerment (AAPI FORCE Education Fund), the analysis was not entirely surprising. It deeply affirmed reports of growing immigration-related caseloads, alarming accounts from impacted community members, and reverberations of fear across our network. AAPI FORCE is a network of grassroots organizations serving working class AAPI communities in California. Our member organizations have been facing the brunt of the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement under both his terms.
According to the ERI analysis, arrests of AAPI individuals increased by 1,109% between 2024 and 2025, compared with a 386% jump in overall ICE arrests in the state. The enormous increase in AAPI arrests under the Trump administration raised the share of AAPI arrests from 4% in 2024 to 11% in 2025. The analysis also found increases in arrests among AAPI women, children under the age of 18, and people from South and East Asian countries. Among those arrested from Asian countries or Pacific Islands, most had citizenship from India, China, Vietnam, Armenia, and Laos. These findings show that the impacts of these arrests were felt across multiple AAPI communities and demographic groups.
For community organizations on the ground that have supported its members dealing with ICE arrests and deportation cases, this analysis also further illustrates the limits of the data that ICE reports. In the case of Empowering Marginalized Asian Communities (EMAC), a nonprofit based in Stockton that was formed in 2017 to address the impacts of immigration enforcement of Southeast Asians in the region under the first Trump Administration, their caseload of supporting community members has quadrupled in the last year.
One traditional way that ICE has apprehended immigrants is through jails, picking up individuals facing criminal charges or who have already been convicted, and the current administration has more than doubled the number of such transfers nationally. The reason why we see such an increase in AAPI arrests is that, since Trump assumed office in 2025, random “street arrests”— have increased 11 times compared to 2024, a result of aggressive daily arrest quotas mandated by ICE officials. Street arrests occur at locations like homes, workplaces, and public spaces, including while people are just out doing their everyday activities. ICE has also begun arresting people already in routine contact with the immigration system, such as during routine ICE check-ins and immigration court proceedings, as well as people with long-past convictions who had already completed their sentences.
CaseyAnn Carbonell, EMAC co-founder and deportation defense campaign lead, has supported several cases where community members with prior convictions were arrested by ICE even after serving their time. According to Carbonell, in one case from 2025, a Laotian man who was brought to the U.S. as a child refugee was arrested while fishing along the San Joaquin River Delta. His arrest while fishing is not unusual under the Trump Administration, but a consequence of a change in ICE’s enforcement strategy.
EMAC assisted the Stockton man’s case by connecting him to legal assistance and mobilizing community support. While he was detained for over a year in a California City detention center, he missed the birth of his child, so EMAC supported his wife and family in his absence. He returned home to Stockton just this past May after successfully expunging a prior conviction from his record which made him a target for deportation.
Within the AAPI community, Southeast Asian refugees, who were displaced by war and given few resources to thrive upon resettlement, have been heavily impacted by the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline and face deportation rates 3–5 times higher than other groups due to prior convictions.
Because of these conditions, communities have responded by forming organizations like Cal Defense to directly support Southeast Asian folks who are facing deportation or who have been deported over prior convictions.
In the case of Kham (whose name has been changed to protect his privacy), he was brought to California as a child refugee from Laos and later married and settled in Fresno. He’s a dad to three girls who was supposed to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary this year, but was deported to Laos last August. Not proud of this today, Kham was charged with robbery as a teenager, served his sentence until he was 21 years old, and has maintained a clear record ever since. His conviction, like for many other refugees who are convicted, led to a final deportation order, but ICE had not prioritized deporting these cases. For over two decades, he diligently attended annual check-ins with ICE, providing information on his employment status, home address, and record.
His wife and three daughters never imagined the day they would say goodbye to him through a glass wall in an ICE facility in Fresno. Their lives changed that day last June. On a day that was supposed to be a routine check in, Kham was detained for over a year for his deportation to Laos, where he has been ever since. Kham has missed his daughter’s high school graduation and his father’s funeral, and will miss celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary.
Advocates, like Nkauj lab Yang (CalDefense’s founder), call this double punishment for refugees: they have already served their time for offenses committed decades ago, followed ICE’s instructions through regular check-ins, and are then deported for the same convictions. Their last hope is a moonshot of a legal pathway: secure a gubernatorial pardon or convince a judge to vacate charges levied at the state level, and then appeal to federal immigration court.
Mainstream media narratives around immigration do not always include AAPI experiences, even though our existence in the U.S. is inextricably linked to migration as AAPIs constitute the only racial group with a majority who are foreign-born. Immigration is deeply personal to AAPIs, and the Trump Administration’s policies have irreparably changed our communities as a result.
These arrests have had severe consequences in our communities, both quantifiable and not. Among the record breaking number of detentions, 32 people died in ICE custody last year, making it the agency’s deadliest year in decades. Of those 32 people, six were from Asian countries. As ERI’s research shows, more AAPIs have been arrested in California than ever before. As for reverberations that are harder to quantify, the time community members have spent sheltering at home from federal agents; the second (or third jobs) that family members, often youth, have had to take up while their head of household is detained; or the widespread fear in our communities under this administration. These examples demonstrate some of the incalculable consequences that data alone cannot fully capture.
ERI’s research provides important factual context to the hidden impacts of ICE enforcement on AAPI communities in California. For AAPI FORCE, we will continue to shed light on our communities’ experiences under ICE, advocate to resource immigrant communities, and build a just future where all immigrants are treated with dignity and have the opportunity to thrive.
ABOUT AAPI FORCE-EF
AAPIs for Civic Empowerment Education Fund is a statewide network that builds progressive Asian American and Pacific Islander governing power in California through campaign organizing, policy advocacy, integrated voter engagement, and narrative change. Learn more about us at https://www.aapiforce-ef.org/.
Shine Cho is the research director of AAPI FORCE-EF where she supports building working class political power with strategic research.