Masked ICE agents lead a crying man in handcuffs out of San Antonio immigration courtroom after he showed up for his hearing. Credit: Sanford Nowlin

The majority of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in South Texas have no criminal convictions other than the civil infraction of being undocumented, new numbers from the nonprofit Deportation Data Project show.

Indeed, 61% of those detained by ICE’s San Antonio Field Office during during the first nine months of President Trump’s second term had no criminal record — a figure that flies in the face of administration claims that its immigration crackdown targets the “worst of the worst” criminals who enter the country illegally.  

The San Antonio Field Office, which covers 36 counties across South and Central Texas, made 11,652 arrests during the first nine months of Trump’s current term, according to Deportation Data Project’s analysis. That’s more than double the amount the Biden White House made from Jan. 20 to Oct. 15 of 2024.

​The Deportation Data Project, a project of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, collects and posts public, anonymized U.S. government immigration data sets and other statistics gathered through Freedom of Information Act requests.

The group’s data collection also shows an increase in the number of people being arrested in South Texas who have no criminal convictions.

The current 61% rate for people without criminal charges compares to 51% in July, when the nonprofit dropped a data set for first six months of Trump’s second term, as previously reported by the Current.

The new analysis about ICE’s South Texas arrests comes mere weeks after Atlanta-based Oakmont Industrial Group sold a 640,000-square-foot warehouse on San Antonio’s East Side to the agency to use as a processing center for people it arrests.

During a Thursday town hall, District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, whose district includes the warehouse, said City Council and the City Attorney’s Office are seeking legal pathways to hinder ICE’s ability to open the detention site.

​ “I think we as a community know that we have to do everything in our power to keep ourselves safe, but I also don’t want it to be forgotten that you have rights,” McKee-Rodriguez said. “You shouldn’t be expected to act outside of your rights when ICE officers, police officers, or any agent who’s supposed to protect and serve you seeks to violate those rights.”

Last week, tech publication Wired reported that ICE is looking to lease office space at 15727 Anthem Parkway on the Northwest side.

That building’s owner this week told TV station KSAT that the General Services Administration, which works to secure real-estate leases for the federal government, toured the building three to six months ago. However, the company hadn’t signed any official lease as of press time.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...