Updated Oct. 20, 2025, 10:55 a.m. ETICE apprehensions in southcentral Pennsylvania more than doubled in the first seven months of the year compared to all of 2024.The arrests are part of the Trump administration's broader immigration enforcement campaign, which includes deputizing local police.Data indicates that many immigrants detained by ICE have no criminal convictions or only minor offenses.“A biometric hit” drew ICE officers to the York County Central Booking center in May while Fernando Hernandez-Garfias was still undergoing processing from an arrest.Local police had taken the 43-year-old into custody after responding to a family fight, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement got involved within that day, court documents show.A grand jury indicted Gregorio Perez-Canceco on the same charge that same day after ICE arrested him at his home in Conewago Township. In his case, the 39-year-old Perez-Canceco hadn’t been newly charged with any local crimes when agents came to his door, according to federal charging documents.Sabino Lemus-Carias, meanwhile, was picked up by ICE at the Franklin County Judicial Center in Chambersburg in March, the same day he pleaded guilty to a DUI count and got probation for it.He was deported to Guatemala a few months later, according to local and federal court documents and national data.Noel Chinchilla-Avilez was also deported to Honduras in April after ICE agents were recorded arresting him on a sidewalk in downtown York City on Valentine’s Day.These four men are a statistic, a growing statistic, of people pulled off streets, from their homes and jobs, from courthouses and out of local jails by ICE agents and deputized police this year as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement campaign.Figures from research group, the Deportation Data Project, show that ICE apprehended approximately 537 people in southcentral Pennsylvania – York, Lancaster, Dauphin, Adams, Cumberland and Franklin counties – from January through the end of July.The figure is a little more than double the approximately 262 ICE apprehensions made in the region during all of 2024, according to the data.Despite Donald Trump's promise to crack down on violent criminals during his 2024 presidential campaign, available data shows that the majority of individuals who've been arrested had no prior history of criminal convictions — or only minor offenses, such as traffic summonses.>>Want to stay up to date on the latest news? Sign up for the Dispatch newsletters.Southcentral Pennsylvania represented a fraction of the statewide amount, with data showing 3,031 apprehensions in Pennsylvania from January through July, including a couple from the New Jersey side of Philadelphia.The arrests statewide for the first seven months of this year were similarly more than double the approximately 1,424 apprehensions recorded for all of 2024, according to the data.Of the apprehensions in southcentral Pennsylvania from January through July, about 190 were done in York County and in apparently general area of York County, including the prison, according to the data.About 134 apprehensions occurred in Dauphin County, including at the Dauphin County Courthouse and the prison. Close to 70 occurred in Franklin County, and another 60 in Cumberland County, including the state prison in Camp Hill.About 56 people were apprehended in Lancaster County, and 25 apprehensions occurred in Adams County, according to the data.Arrests involved immigrants mainly from countries in Central America, South America and the Caribbean, as well as Africa, Asia and Europe.The rising number of arrests here reflects how President Trump hammered immigration as the top priority of his second term, as well as the turmoil around it in terms of both opposition and of attorneys and courts trying to keep up with arrests and deportations.“For attorneys who are hired, it is really about making sense of what is happening since this administration is generally not following the law,” said Shamaine Daniels, an attorney, activist and Harrisburg city councilwoman.She noted that most detainees can’t afford attorneys to represent them.Jason Koontz, an ICE spokesman in Philadelphia, did not respond to a request for comment.The Homeland Security department announced Sept. 23 that 2 million immigrants were deported since Jan. 20, the week of Trump’s inauguration.Arrests started immediately amid a flurry of presidential executive orders. The administration also relied on a federal program, 287(g), to have officers in law enforcement agencies in counties and cities nationwide double as immigration agents.The aggressive campaign has met resistance through protests, civil disobedience and violence in some cases, leading to escalations where the Trump administration deployed National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles in June, has activated the National Guard for deployment to Chicago and is looking to move troops into Portland, Oregon.Troops were also put on patrol in Washington, D.C.The White House has argued the crackdown is aimed at targeting violent criminals in the country illegally. The patterns of arrests, though, indicates that agents have arrested immigrants of various ages and backgrounds, as well as those charged with or convicted of crimes along with many more who have no criminal histories.Please consider subscribing to support local journalism.York City Mayor Michael Helfrich posted a warning in June that people without criminal histories were being detained as he referenced the arrest of a longtime resident who’d been under a previously unenforced immigration supervision order."Like Lucy pulling the football out from Charlie Brown, what these residents have created is now being taken away," Helfrich wrote.He urged local immigrants under similar supervision orders to start seeking legal advice."The only thing that stands between them and being detained by ICE without prior notification, is getting a plan in place now, whether it is another appeal for legal status or plans to move out of the country on their own terms," Helfrich wrote in June.The Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based policy think tank, showed that ICE booked 204,297 people into detention between October 2024 and June 14. Of them, 65% were not convicted. And more than 93% of all those detained had no convictions for violent crimes.The Marshall Project, a criminal justice journalism organization, came to similar findings in an article in August.The group’s analysis of Deportation Data Project data showed that of the more than 120,000 people deported between January and May, about two-thirds of them (81,600) had no history of criminal convictions, while 8% were known only for illegal entry into the U.S., the article showed.Another 25% of the deportees had convictions, though about half of that group were charged with violent or potentially violent offenses, indicating the other half had convictions for less-serious offenses.>>Want to stay up to date on the latest news? Sign up for the Dispatch newsletters.York County and southcentral Pennsylvania appear to be in a similar boat, at least among immigrants with cases filed in the U.S. district court in Harrisburg this year, including Herandez-Garfias, Perez-Canceco, Lemus-Carias and Chinchilla-Avilez.FERNANDO HERNANDEZ-GARFIASHernandez-Garfias was arrested the night of May 6 after Northern York County Regional police responded to a fight with his son at their home in Jackson Township.Charging documents indicate an argument escalated and became physical amid the youth’s reported anger issues. An officer took Hernandez-Garfias into custody due to the alleged situation and injuries to the youth he said he saw.While he was being processed on the strangulation and harassment charges, federal court documents show ICE officers received “a biometric hit” from Central Booking, went to the prison and fingerprinted Hernandez-Garfias.He was indicted about a month-and-a-half later on a federal count of illegal re-entry.ICE deportation officer Colt Detwiler justified the count in federal charging documents by listing Hernandez-Garfias’ history with local courts and immigration.Those documents, including Pennsylvania court documents, show Hernandez-Garfias was guilty of giving police false identification and unauthorized use of a vehicle in Adams County in the early 2000s. For both, he was put on an alternative sentencing program for a year.He was also charged with misdemeanor drug possession in Lancaster County in 2005, and those counts were disposed of with a plea in district court, according to court documents.Hernandez-Garfias was caught by border patrol officers in 2008 near the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas in 2008. He voluntarily deported to Mexico then and then returned to the U.S. sometime later, ICE alleged.Apparent failures to pay court costs and fees from his cases in Adams County built up to court contempt findings, bench warrants and probation revocations in 2016 – issues that court documents indicate were resolved that year.But at the same time, federal documents show was Herandez-Garfias deported on an immigration judge’s order in late 2016.He returned again to the U.S. sometime later, before the situation erupted at his home in May.The current local case no longer appears on Pennsylvania’s courts portal. The York County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to a question about the case’s status.However that gets resolved or if it already was, federal court documents show Hernandez-Garfias was ordered in August to be detained on grounds that he’s a flight risk, particularly because he’ll likely be deported again.He’s scheduled to either plead guilty to the illegal reentry charge next Thursday or potentially go to trial in the federal court Nov. 3, according to the court documents.NOEL CHINCHILLA-AVILEZA local theft case against Noel Chinchilla-Avilez remains unresolved after he was deported to Honduras in April.The reason: He missed an immigration court date in New York two years ago which triggered a removal order.ICE and Homeland Security agents arrested the 26-year-old Feb. 14 on a sidewalk along North Duke Street in downtown York City. A passer-by recorded video of the incident where Chinchilla-Avilez was heard pleading to call his pregnant wife.Federal charging documents alleged that investigators confronted Chinchilla-Avilez after tracking an international package shipment to a Duke Street apartment.At the time, Chinchilla-Avilez faced a felony count of receiving stolen property after a York City police investigation found tools from a burglary case in his previous home along East College Avenue in 2024.He was on track to resolve the case through a county program that serves as an alternative to the standard court process before ICE arrested him, court documents show.Homeland Security also noted that Chinchilla-Avilez was charged in a child sex abuse case in New York’s Nassau County. However, officials there couldn’t confirm such a case existed, and federal investigators even noted they don’t know whether or how it was resolved.But the immigration arrest apparently took precedence as Chinchilla-Avilez pleaded guilty April 9 in federal court to a count of failing to depart the U.S. when ordered in 2023.Deportation Data Project information indicates Chinchilla-Avilez was moved from Pennsylvania to ICE’s short-term Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana before he was deported to his native Honduras on April 21.The stolen property case in York County wasn’t closed following Chinchilla-Avilez’s removal. Judge Clyde Vedder instead put the case on indefinite hold and issued a bench warrant on a chance that Chinchilla-Avilez could return to York in the future.GREGORIO PEREZ-CANCECOThe most significant crime ICE Officer Detwiler cited for Gregorio Perez-Canceco was that he gave false information to police in York County once in 2005, and he that he was removed from the U.S. five times 20 years ago, and again in 2017.Charging documents show Perez-Canceco was first deported in 2005 shortly after he was accused of giving false information to York Area Regional police.He was caught at least four times in Texas and Arizona in June and July 2006 and returned to Mexico each time, charging documents alleged.Perez-Canceco returned again sometime later, was arrested by ICE again in York County in 2017, was deported again, and then returned to the U.S. again, the documents alleged.ICE officers picked up Perez-Canceco outside his home along Susquehanna Trial on May 23.By then, state court documents indicate he was charged in Springettsbury Township with a low-level misdemeanor from a vehicle wreck. The case, though, has been inactive since 2020. Federal charging documents don’t reference it.Perez-Canceco is still in the U.S., apparently in custody somewhere, while awaiting trial in federal court on an illegal reentry charge.A judge scheduled the trial for Jan. 5 in Wilkes-Barre, court documents show.Please consider subscribing to support local journalism.SABINO LEMUS-CARIASThe same can’t be said for Sabino Lemus-Carias of Franklin County.ICE officers arrested the 36-year-old at the courthouse in Franklin County on March 26, the same day he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor DUI charge and was sentenced to probation, court documents show.While free in the local case, Lemus-Carias went into federal custody on an illegal reentry charge.ICE Officer Detwiler alleged that Lemus-Carias was deported in 2006 following an immigration arrest in Texas. He returned sometime later and remained in the U.S. until this summer.Federal court documents show Lemus-Carias pleaded guilty to illegal reentry and was deported to his native Guatemala in July.These four cases are a sampling from a search of immigration-related cases filed in the middle district federal court in Pennsylvania from January through July.And the number of such cases involving defendants in south-central counties from that search don’t add up to the approximately 537 apprehensions from the Deportation Data Project numbers of the same time period.Amid the ongoing arrests and deportations, nearly 40 law enforcement agencies from throughout Pennsylvania have signed onto partnerships with ICE to assist in immigration enforcement through the federal 287(g) program, with apparently varying involvements.The West York Borough Police Department agreed to participate in August.Chief Matthew Millsaps said at the time that his priority was for borough officers to receive more training and education in immigration laws and procedures while he faced increased requests for assistance with such cases.The program’s name refers to a section and subsection of federal immigration law which authorizes the government to sign agreements with police agencies for officers to act as immigration deputies.ICE boasts that the program is a tool for expanding its ranks as a “force multiplier.” Officers can help carr