ACLU Reports Over 1,200 Immigration-Enforcement Incidents in Eight States, Citing Misconduct and School Lockdowns

The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday released a new report saying it documented more than 1,200 reported immigration-enforcement incidents across eight states in 2025 and found recurring patterns of alleged misconduct, racial profiling, force, and enforcement activity near schools and other everyday public places.

Among the incidents the ACLU said it reviewed, 432 involved what the group categorized as misconduct by immigration agents, 437 likely involved racial profiling, 214 involved children who were detained, targeted or experienced misconduct, and 155 involved U.S. citizens who were detained, targeted or subjected to misconduct. The report also counted 49 incidents at or near schools and said 40 of those incidents led schools to go on full or partial lockdown.

The 80-page report, titled “Agents of Chaos and Cruelty: How the Trump Administration’s National Deportation Policing Force Has Attacked American Communities,” was authored by Denise C. Bell and Naureen Shah and published July 16. It covers incidents from January through December 2025 in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland and New Mexico. The ACLU said it drew from publicly available reporting, ACLU litigation materials, congressional investigations, human-rights documentation and investigative journalism, and described its methodology as conservative, time-limited and not exhaustive. The incidents it counted are a sample of publicly reported cases in those eight states, not a complete national count of immigration enforcement activity.

The report said 624 of the incidents took place in everyday public locations such as grocery stores, bus stops, gas stations and sidewalks. It said agents pushed, shoved, tackled or pinned people in 418 incidents, and it counted 361 deployments of chemical irritants, including 132 that it said were aimed directly at individuals. The ACLU’s definition of misconduct includes use or threatened use of force, intimidation tactics, and retaliatory actions against observers or people recording enforcement activity.

The findings arrive amid intensified scrutiny of Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics after two fatal shootings involving federal immigration agents this month. On July 7, ICE was involved in the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. ICE said the driver “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense,” an account disputed by witnesses and passengers. On July 13, federal immigration agents fatally shot Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, according to AP and other reporting. After those incidents, AP and local outlets reported that the administration ordered ICE to suspend most vehicle stops pending review on July 14.

The ACLU said the report points to a broader enforcement strategy that relies in part on state and local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. It specifically criticized expanded use of 287(g) agreements, a section of federal immigration law that allows some state and local officers to perform certain immigration-enforcement functions under agreements with the federal government.

The report said it identified 86 incidents at or near what it called sensitive locations, including schools. It also said 32 of the 214 children affected were U.S. citizens. The ACLU framed those findings as evidence that immigration enforcement has extended into routine public settings far beyond jails or border operations.

“Far beyond Minneapolis, the Trump administration has deployed a national deportation policing force that has committed civil rights violations at a scale and severity without parallel in modern American history — turning schools, bus stops and grocery stores into sites of violence and abuse,” Shah said in ACLU press materials. The ACLU called for accountability measures and argued that 287(g) deputization — the federal authority under 8 U.S.C. 1357(g) — has helped widen the reach of immigration enforcement through state and local agencies.