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The number of people held in ICE detention on any given day grew 58% between 2025 and 2026, increasing the total number of people behind bars in the U.S., a new report shows. The latest edition of the Prison Policy Initiative’s report Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie — which pieces together the most recent data on different confinement systems to provide the big-picture view of incarceration in this country — shows that the rise in immigration detention has driven up overall incarceration numbers.
Key findings from this year’s report include:
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Across all federal agencies for which data are available, including the federal Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (which holds unaccompanied migrant children), the number of people behind bars for immigration reasons increased 32% since last year.
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The number of people detained by ICE grew by 25,200 (58%) since last year, remaining near record-high levels.
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In 2024 (the most recent year for which data are available), people held under local jurisdiction in city, county, and regional jails fell by 17,000.
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Nearly 10,000 fewer people were incarcerated for federal crimes in 2026 compared to 2025, reflecting changes in federal law enforcement priorities and clemency actions under the second Trump administration.
“Even as we see the number of people in prisons and jails hold relatively steady, immigration detention has exploded,” said report co-author Wendy Sawyer. “What’s more, the number of facilities holding people for ICE grew by 65 percent in the last year. President Trump’s cruel and wasteful policies of mass detention are not only driving up the number of incarcerated people; they are expanding the carceral landscape in this country.”
As in every edition of this report, 2026’s Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie includes sections putting incarceration numbers in important context:
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A “myth-busting” section addressing ten common misconceptions about mass incarceration and crime, including the impacts of immigration and criminal justice reform on crime and the footprint of the “war on drugs”;
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Sections taking a closer look at specific sections of the “pie” chart, and explaining how even low-level offenses can spiral into time spent behind bars;
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A section “zooming out” to show that when systems of community-based punishment — mainly, probation and parole — are included, the total number of people under correctional control grows to over 5 million.
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Insights about the fiscal costs of mass incarceration, which now total $445 billion per year.
The full report is available at https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2026.html.
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