Amid a national immigration crackdown ordered by the Trump administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining far more people in Alaska than in previous years.

While attorneys who represent immigrant clients say detention numbers are low compared to the Lower 48 and federal agent tactics seem to be more focused, the change is palpable: In all of 2024, the Alaska Department of Corrections held a total of 13 people for ICE.

From the beginning of January 2025 until mid-January 2026, a total of 99 people taken into custody by ICE have been held in Alaska jail facilities.

"ICE operations up here have clearly ramped up compared to previous years," said Asa Hohman, an immigration attorney in Anchorage.

Alaska has no dedicated ICE detention facility, so the U.S. Department of Homeland Security contracts with the state Department of Corrections to temporarily confine people until they are flown out of state, usually to a regional detention center in Tacoma, Washington. Most are held only a few days in Alaska jails.

The 99 detainees figure doesn't include a June airlift of around 40 detainees who were flown to Alaska from a Tacoma federal immigration holding facility to relieve crowding. Most of those detainees spent roughly three weeks in Alaska.

Advocates have raised concerns about conditions, saying civil immigration detainees shouldn't be held in jail conditions. It's possible that some people in immigration custody in the state are never held in jail facilities and are transferred directly out of state.

The Department of Corrections data offers a look at the scope of ICE's immigration actions in Alaska, as well information on who the federal officers are taking into custody.

Of the people held in Alaska jails on behalf of ICE, 17 self-reported being from Mexico. Six people each said they were from Guatemala and Peru. Some 35 people did not declare their country of origin. ICE also detained people in Alaska from Fiji, Tonga, Mauritania, India, the Philippines and Slovenia, among other countries.

A spokesperson for ICE did not respond to questions about the agency's actions in Alaska.

About a third of the people listed were first detained on Alaska state criminal charges, then moved to ICE custody, according to the corrections department data.

That tracks with what immigration attorneys have observed, said Nicolas Olano, an Anchorage immigration attorney: In Alaska, ICE has largely been pursuing people who have some kind of past criminal issue or are already in immigration deportation proceedings, Olano said.

In some cases, the people targeted have been longtime Alaska residents with no criminal record.

Usually, ICE tracks the person and then takes them into custody coming to or going from their home, Olano said. In one October case, a man arriving to work at a jobsite was taken into custody while a woman filmed.

There have been larger-scale raids on restaurants and other businesses that employ immigrants, said Hohman, the attorney. But in general, Alaska hasn't seen the aggressive sweeps and sidewalk raids like those documented in Lower 48 cities.

"I don't think that the ICE officers are doing it the same way they are in the Lower 48, at least not that I've heard or seen," Olano said. "I do know that they are picking up a lot more people than they would have in the past."

"It does seem much more targeted (here)," Hohman said. "More like they are using precision tools."

Hohman said he hasn't heard of situations where ICE has entered areas such as schools to detain people, but he held a training Saturday aimed at educating bystanders and advocates on the legal rights of immigrants in such situations.

"It's good to know how to proceed so you can try and keep your head on and keep things safe, but still protect everybody's liberties and constitutional rights," Hohman said.

It's not clear whether ICE had detained people in Alaska in other sensitive places such as hospitals or medical clinics. In at least one case documented in court filings, ICE officers entered the Anchorage courthouse Jan. 12 and left with a woman who was there for a hearing in a divorce case, according to a statement from the Alaska Court System. The woman was released after about an hour, according to an advocate who was with her.

While Alaska has seen more targeted detentions, anything could happen, Olano said: Nationally, the Trump administration has ordered ICE to detain at least 3,000 people each day. In Alaska, ICE used to have two officers who conducted most immigration enforcement, he said. Now, there are around 12 officers.

"The pressure to maintain numbers is there," Olano said.

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