Video Transcript: NYCLU raises questions about ICE enforcement practices
Anchor: With new statistics on ICE arrests recently released in Onondaga County, Leo Eckman has the latest on trends in 2026.
Leo Eckman: New statistics in Onondaga County show a major increase in deportations last year. According to Syracuse.com, 56 people were deported from Onondaga County in 2024, the final year of President Biden’s term. That number jumped to 289 in 2025, the first year of President Trump’s term. Ify Chikezie, staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union says statewide ICE arrests have continued their upward tick into 2026.
Ify Chikezie: We’re certainly seeing continued very high numbers of folks who are being arrested, in many cases without a warrant across the state.
Eckman: Trump campaigned on getting out the worst of the worst. New data, however, suggests that three quarters of immigrants arrested in 2025 had no criminal history. Chikezie says a lot of the people she represents are established community members.
Chikezie: You know, we interact with folks who have lived in New York State for decades, are well ingrained in their communities, have families here, who have never interfaced with the criminal legal system, being forcibly grabbed, arrested and detained.
Eckman: With arrests continuing to climb, questions remain about who ICE is really targeting. Leo Eckman — NCC News
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Months into 2026, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is tracking a pattern that one staff attorney says defies the White House’s justification for its heightened immigration enforcement. US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests are not slowing down and the people being swept up, according to the NYCLU, are predominantly individuals with no criminal history.
Ify Chikezie, an NYCLU staff attorney, speaking from the organization’s frontline immigration legal support across New York State, described a landscape shaped by racial profiling and questionable arrests.
“We’re certainly seeing continued very high numbers of folks who are being arrested, in many cases without a warrant, across the state,” said Chikezie.
By the end of 2025, roughly 71% of ICE detainees nationwide had no criminal conviction or pending charges, according to Federal data. Chikezie says the the data upstate mirrors that figure.
The NYCLU filed a lawsuit last week targeting ICE’s arrest practices directly, arguing that the agency has routinely misrepresented it’s own legal authority. Under federal law, ICE must establish probable cause and must separately satisfy two distinct inquires: that an individual lacks lawful status and that they are a flight risk. Chikezie says ICE has tried to lower both standards.
“ICE has tried in various ways to thwart its authority. They are conducting illegal arrests and those illegal arrest practices are implicating many New Yorkers, many of whom have no criminal histories,” said Chikezie. “Sometimes even people who have status that allows them to be in the States. They are being rounded up, profiled, trailed, stalked and harassed just because they are brown or just because they are speaking Spanish in public.”
The Trump administration has framed their immigration process as targeting “the worst of the worst.” Chikezie rejected that notion, calling it both false and rooted in broader xenophobic framing of immigrants as inherently dangerous.
“It is absolutely not these hardened criminals, worst of the worst — absolutely not. They are pulling grandparents, parents, loved ones, neighbors, cousins, friends, and sticking them in detention and then pressuring people to sign deportation papers,” said Chikezie. “The data bears none of the ‘worst of the worst’ narrative out — none of it.”