U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 1,400 people in the Columbus area in 2025, five times as many people as it did in 2024, according to an analysis of agency data published by the Deportation Data Project.

That total includes approximately 240 people arrested in Columbus and central Ohio during “Operation Buckeye,” an immigration enforcement blitz that ICE said ran from Dec. 16 to 21, 2025.

Although ICE has celebrated going after “the worst of the worst criminals” in Ohio, the vast majority of people taken into custody had no criminal conviction – less than 7% of arrestees during the heightened enforcement surge in mid-December had a criminal record, according to the Deportation Data Project (DDP) data analyzed by The Dispatch. The DDP collects immigration data from lawsuits and publishes the datasets publicly.

A representative for ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

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