Nearly 1,800 Iowans were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2025 alone, with nearly 90% of them deported, according to a new report from a statewide immigrant advocacy group.
“That is gonna be probably really shocking for the wider public,” said Elena Casillas-Hoffman, spokesperson for the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, a statewide immigration legal and advocacy organization based in Des Moines.
She reached out after seeing my videos on ICE raids in Iowa, saying those numbers weren’t even close to the real number of Iowans being detained. And Iowa MMJ just dropped the data proving it.
“There’s a very intentional effort by the Trump administration to limit what data gets out there,” Casillas-Hoffman said. “So while that number may be shocking, we still assume the [actual] number to be much greater than that.”
ICE, along with other Department of Homeland Security officers, have detained and deported Iowans for years, including at high-profile worksite raids like in Postville in 2008.
But in just the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, detainments and deportations have skyrocketed.
According to the Deportation Data Project‘s latest report:
- ICE arrests across the US more than quadrupled;
- Detentions quintupled;
- And arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record were eight times higher than the previous year under President Joe Biden.
“There is, at times, a very large misconception that either, plainly, ICE isn’t in Iowa or ICE isn’t active in Iowa,” Casillas-Hoffman said. “This report details quite thoroughly that ICE is absolutely active in Iowa.”
Iowa MMJ dug into Iowa-specific data for their own report, and found that 1,779 recent immigrants were detained in the past year, and 86% of those people were then deported—the vast majority of them men of working age supporting families here.
“It goes to this larger trend that we’ve been hearing overwhelmingly from our communities, quote, ‘They are taking our fathers,’” Casillas-Hoffman said. “And the data pretty dramatically supports this.”
Casillas-Hoffman says those fathers and their families worked, paid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to state and local governments, and have helped revitalize numerous rural Iowa communities.
“Marshalltown, Storm Lake, Ottumwa, Postville—so many communities that are only thriving because of immigrants and refugees that are adding to the community,” she said.
And they appreciate what Iowa has to offer, Casillas-Hoffman added.
“Many are intentionally choosing to live in Iowa for the very same values that many others have come and chosen Iowa, for many of the reasons that histories of immigrants to Iowa have chosen Iowa: They like living in small rural communities. They like knowing their neighbors,” she said.
Casillas-Hoffman said she’s hopeful politicians will begin to recognize the toll the increased deportations are having on Iowa.
The two major candidates for governor have different views on the issue:
- Republican Zach Lahn has not said anything specific about ICE deportations in Iowa, though he accepted the endorsement of Trump, whose administration is responsible for the massive increase.
- Democrat Rob Sand said detaining and deporting immigrants who are working and who have no criminal record is “something I wouldn’t go along with if I was governor” during a town hall last year.
Casillas-Hoffman said she wanted to see stronger messaging.
“We would love to see policies and we would love to see efforts made by legislators that acknowledge them, that humanize them, that, that seek the future for them here in Iowa,” she said.
“Our communities are terrified,” she added. “Our communities are facing some of the most abhorrent, inhumane things that they could. In this moment, it requires all of us to stand up and speak out.”
