More than 93% of immigrants arrested by federal agents on the streets in the New York metropolitan area were from Latin American countries, according to an investigation by The City Reporter based on a database of more than 1,200 lawsuits. The reporting, by Gwynne Hogan, Rosalind Adams, and Haidee Chu, circulated nationally through The Guardian on June 22.
Latinos make up only 66% of immigrants without legal status in the region, meaning the arrest figures far exceed their share of the undocumented population. Reporters identified 430 street arrests clustered in Latino communities across the region, from Passaic and Plainfield in New Jersey to Brentwood and Hempstead on Long Island. By contrast, Latinos accounted for 55% of arrests in administrative settings such as ICE check-ins, USCIS appointments, and immigration court hearings.
The newsroom built its database by reviewing every emergency habeas corpus petition filed in three federal courts between October 15, 2025 and March 15, 2026. Court filings described agents stopping people who resembled photographs of others they were seeking, then arresting them regardless. In one case, agents approached a 22-year-old grocer in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, showed him photos of other men, and told him, “You’re Latino, you look like one of them,” before arresting him. The documented arrests likely undercount the total, as only about one in ten immigrants arrested filed a habeas petition during the five-month period.
Elora Mukherjee, a Columbia University law professor who directs the school’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, said the data confirms that ICE engages in racial profiling when carrying out street arrests. The Department of Homeland Security rejected that characterization, stating in response that allegations of racial profiling are false and that what makes someone a target is being in the U.S. illegally, not their race or ethnicity. Advocacy groups, including the ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union, have filed lawsuits in California, Minnesota, and New York alleging the warrantless arrests rely on racial profiling and violate immigrants’ constitutional rights.
