Nearly six in 10 people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Memphis since the Memphis Safe Task Force began operations last fall had no criminal conviction and no pending criminal charges, according to an analysis published on Tuesday by the Institute for Public Service Reporting, a nonprofit newsroom based at the University of Memphis.
Source: Institute for Public Service Reporting — Memphis
The analysis covers 1,575 ICE arrests in the city between September 29, 2025, and August 5, 2026, the most recent date available. It is based on ICE's own arrest records, obtained by the Deportation Data Project through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit — the first release that identifies the city where each arrest took place.
Of the 1,575 arrestees, 922 people (59%) had neither a conviction nor pending charges. Another 249 (16%) had criminal convictions — including drug trafficking, burglary, domestic violence, vehicle theft, DUI and simple assault — and 404 (26%) had pending charges. Just 10 arrestees (0.6%) had convictions for violent felonies: five for aggravated assault, three for rape, one for robbery and one for homicide, the Institute found.
Mexican nationals (432 arrests) and Guatemalan nationals (396) accounted for more than half of those arrested, followed by citizens of Honduras, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The data also shows at least 68 children were arrested by ICE in Memphis during President Trump's second term, at least 29 of them under the age of ten. No child is identified in the data reporting.
The surge was among the largest in the country for a city far from the border. ICE recorded 1,057 arrests in Memphis from October to December 2025, the task force's first three full months — more than twice Nashville's busiest three-month total in Tennessee (473) and close to the 1,225 arrests recorded in Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge. An earlier Deportation Data Project analysis reported by WMC Action News 5 found the same pattern in Shelby County: nearly 900 arrests in the months after the task force launched, with more than 80% involving people with no criminal convictions.
Source: WMC Action News 5 via WVLT — Shelby County ICE data analysis
"The government has used rhetoric about violent crime to justify this really extraordinary immigration enforcement campaign in Memphis, but these numbers definitely tell a very different story," said Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, legal director of the ACLU of Tennessee, responding to the findings. Community activist Maria Oceja of Vecindarios 901 said the data matches what residents have witnessed since the task force arrived.
The Department of Homeland Security referred questions to the U.S. Marshals Service, the task force's lead agency. Marshals spokesman Brady McCarron said the task force had not seen the data and could not reply with specificity, but stated that as of October 22, 2026, the task force had made 13,825 total arrests, of which only 848 were ICE-related administrative arrests, adding that ICE also makes arrests in Memphis independently of the task force.
The single largest operation came on August 30, when ICE's New Orleans field office arrested 121 people at the El Corralón nightclub in the Berclair neighbourhood in "Operation Corral Light," one of the agency's largest single-day city operations of this administration. In its September 1 statement, DHS said those arrested included people with criminal histories including larceny, drug possession, domestic violence, driving while intoxicated, assault, child endangerment and prostitution, and said federal and state warrants were executed during the operation.
Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security — Operation Corral Light statement, Sep 1, 2026
The Institute noted its data runs only through August 5 and does not include the El Corralón raid itself. The findings are likely to sharpen the debate in Memphis — and in other cities watching the task force as a possible national model — over whether immigration enforcement is matching the administration's stated focus on violent offenders.