Immigration arrests across Washington state shot up to a new high over the summer, reflecting a nationwide surge in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The newly published records show which cities in Washington state were the hardest hit.

Roughly 700 people were arrested each month in June and July. Just to compare, in just those two months of this year, ICE arrests eclipsed all the recorded arrests during the first seven months of 2025. About 24 people were detained in June and July 2024 during the final year of former President Joe Biden’s term.

Washington hasn’t seen a day without an ICE arrest since late March, according to ICE records. In Seattle, fewer and fewer days also go by without an arrest, often only pausing on the weekend, according to records released this week from the Deportation Data Project based at the University of California and analyzed by KUOW.

The project obtains records of ICE arrests and detentions through Freedom of Information Act requests to the Department of Homeland Security. For the first time, the records published by researchers also now breakdown arrests by city.

From January through the end of July, here are the top cities where people have been arrested.

• Yakima: 522 arrests
• Seattle: 477 arrests
• Tukwila: 362 arrests
• Spokane: 342 arrests

After that, cities like in Tacoma, SeaTac, and Kent each have had more than 100 people arrested over the past several months.

Nearly all the arrests take place in the community through traffic stops, at check-ins or other enforcement. The ICE records refer to these as “at large” or street arrests.

Northwest immigration arrests surged in June, July, latest data shows

A small percentage of arrests, categorized as “custodial arrests” happen through transfers from state or federal prisons to ICE custody. These transfers are a level of state cooperation with immigration enforcement that’s allowed under the Keep Washington Working Act.

According to the data, the majority of street arrests are people who have no criminal record.

Unlike previous and highly visible ICE operations in other states, much of enforcement in Washington is often discreetly happening early in the morning or in the evening hours.

“It felt like we were chasing ghosts,” said David Morales. He leads the immigrant response teams for the Yakima Immigrant Response Network, which has been operating since President Donald Trump’s first term.

Before this summer’s surge of ICE arrests and detentions in Seattle, cities like Yakima had already been feeling the significant effects of ramped up immigration enforcement and arrests. Initially it was a challenge for the network’s efforts to document and report ICE arrests to the public.

“It was like trying to find evidence of what had occurred because these things would happen, and all we would have is a smashed car window or a vacant car,” Morales said.

Since then the Yakima network has made strides, including having local content creators help vet reports online, and tracking reports posted to social media.

“Over the course of the last year and a half, we’ve gotten a bit more community trust, and community members know to record these things. We’re able to find recordings of ICE arrests much more commonly than we used to find,” Morales said.

Many of the people arrested in Washington state are taken into custody during a vehicle stop. Along with targeted enforcement, immigration enforcement will use racial profiling, and other factors, to identify someone to arrest while out on patrol. They access driver and license plate records managed by the Washington Department of Licensing and Washington State Patrol, putting those state agencies at odds with state laws that were passed in effort to limit the amount of cooperation between Washington state and federal immigration enforcement agencies.

“There are many victories that turn out to not be victories and not to have any real effect,” Morales said.

The governor’s office said there is no immediate way to address this incongruence in the near term. They want to avoid fully shutting off all access to the federal government in order to keep information flowing for public safety concerns — such as law enforcement that targets human trafficking.

Morales also said many arrests are also frequently happening outside of local courts, and points to the Courts Open to All Act, passed the year after the Keep Washington Working Act, as also floundering. That act sought to prevent immigration enforcement from interfering with local court matters.

“It’s the same thing with the face mask law [that] has been blatantly violated every single day,” he said. “I think the passage of the law encouraged them to put on the mask as a political signal of rebellion against the state.”

Since last September Morales said the Yakima network has launched a humanitarian department helping families who’ve lost a breadwinner with legal aid, meal boxes, gas cards, and other basic supplies. In some cases they’ve also been helping families secure U.S. and Mexican passports to leave the country if the family chooses to deport together.

“We’re… getting basically move-out packages with suitcases and, and, and other similar items,” Morales said. “It’s been very difficult for the volunteers, but it’s also been very rewarding for the volunteers.”

Enforcement has struck at the sense of safety of many mixed immigration status communities. Morales points to a decrease in community vitality and a reported decline in Latino businesses, the hardest hit community by immigration enforcement in Yakima.

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Other cities and communities are also feeling the effects, as Renton Councilmember Carmen Rivera documented in a social media post this week after an encounter with ICE agents.

“If you are an elected official, it is the least that you can do to confront ICE in your neighborhood,” she said. “We have the position, the privilege, and the platform. Eyes are on us, and it is up to us to protect our neighbors.”

Rivera joined a group of her neighbors in a standoff with ICE agents Thursday that lasted 45 minutes, she said. Officers were parked in front of her neighbor’s home in two SUVs with tinted windows, one identified with ICE logo on the side of the vehicle. Inside she said she saw agents with face coverings.

She approached one of the ICE officers asking why they were in her neighborhood. She was told they had a warrant for one of their neighbors who was inside their home.

“ He would not show me this warrant and basically said they would not leave until they were able to serve this warrant, which they were not able to show me,” she posted online.

After 45 minutes, Rivera said the ICE agents left. She said it was a case of mistaken identity. Her neighbor was a U.S. citizen.

But the neighborhood is now vigilant, expecting ICE agents to return. The daughter of a police officer, Rivera said Trump’s immigration enforcement crackdown is not making her community safer.

“These cowards aren’t going to stop. It’s gonna be up to us to keep us safe,” she said. “So stay vigilant, stay safe, join a rapid response group if you can, get to know your neighbors, take care of each other, and please be safe.”

NOTE FOR READERS:You can look at these arrest records yourselfand find your city by toggling the filters. The “arrest” dataset provides a generalized snapshot of ICE activity, which is what KUOW used for the reporting in this article. Researchers at the Deportation Data Project recommend looking at the “arrest with detentions” dataset for a more specific look at arrests that end up with people locked up.

Gustavo Sagrero Álvarez is a reporter with KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/08/30/washington-ice-arrests-records/