In the U.S., the legal cannabis industry rakes in billions of dollars a year, expected to hit $45 billion by 2025. Meanwhile, the plant is already legal for adult use in 24 states and for medical use in 40. For many, that means booming businesses, shiny dispensaries, and a culture gone mainstream. For others, though, it’s been a nightmare: of the more than 120,000 immigrants deported in 2025, 600 were for marijuana-related offenses. And in three out of four cases, those charges were over five years old, according to Marijuana Moment.
Many of those arrested and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had faced minor cannabis-related charges years earlier, far from the high-level offenses typically associated with drug enforcement.
An investigation by The Marshall Project—also published in Louisiana Illuminator and signed by Christie Thompson and Anna Flagg—reviewed accumulated data from the Deportation Data Project, which analyzed ICE’s official records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Hard data: Who is ICE deporting, exactly?
Between January and May 2025, more than 120,000 people were deported. According to ICE data (via the Deportation Data Project), most had no serious convictions:
- 67% (81,600 people): No criminal conviction at all.
- 8% (10,200 people): Only offense was illegal entry.
- 25% (30,000 people): Any other type of conviction.
Breaking it down by offense paints an even clearer picture:
- Marijuana: 600+ deportations. 77% of cases are 5+ years old.
- Drug possession (not cannabis): 900+ deportations. 40% of cases are 5+ years old.
- DUI (driving under the influence): 4,800+ deportations. 32% of cases are 5+ years old.
- Traffic offenses (e.g., driving without a license): 1,800+ deportations. 43% of cases are 5+ years old.
These numbers showcase how today’s deportation policy is not centered on dangerous individuals but on minor infractions, often old ones, in a country where more and more states are legalizing weed and the industry generates billions of dollars.
Petty offenses, extreme punishments
The Marshall Project notes that deportations for traffic violations—like driving without a license—have tripled in the last six months, reaching nearly 600 in May. This year, they’ve already topped 1,800.
On top of that, two-thirds of the 120,000 people deported between January and May had no criminal record whatsoever. Only around 12% had committed a violent or potentially violent crime. In the face of these numbers, the official narrative that ICE is targeting the “worst of the worst” is hard to reconcile with the data.
Meanwhile, deportations for nonviolent offenses—failure to appear in court, cannabis possession, petty theft, traffic violations—have nearly doubled since January.
Stateline confirms this: just 7% of ICE detentions under Trump’s administration involve violent crimes, and only 5% involve drugs; a drop from 9% under Biden.
It raises a question: Are current enforcement trends prioritizing volume over risk?
The 3,000 arrests-a-day goal
Not long ago, Trump’s advisor Stephen Miller publicly floated a specific target: 3,000 ICE arrests a day, helping explain the push to detain and deport en masse. Not always dangerous people, but often those who simply fit the numbers. If the goal is 3,000 a day, then the nature of the offense was never really the point.
Yet in court filings, the Department of Justice has denied the existence of quotas, insisting that “neither ICE leadership nor its field offices have been directed to meet any numerical quota or target for arrests, detentions, removals, field encounters, or any other operational activities that Ice or its components undertake in the course of enforcing federal immigration law.”
The contrast between public remarks and court filings has raised concerns. While ICE denies formal quotas, data trends suggest numerical targets may influence enforcement decisions.
Why does this matter? Because it explains why deportations have skyrocketed, even for people without serious crimes. The policy doesn’t seem to be about risk or danger, but about hitting numbers.
And that’s where the tension appears: the “tough on crime” rhetoric vs. the reality of ordinary people with minor offenses, many from years ago, paying the human cost.
From Biden to Trump: The quantitative leap
Under Biden (through the end of FY 2023), more than half of the deportees had no criminal record, and the average number of monthly deportations for traffic violations hovered around 80 people. Today, under Trump’s return, that monthly average exceeds 350.
The difference is notable, reflecting a shift toward higher deportation rates for minor offenses compared to previous years.
This can’t be chalked up to demographic changes or migration flows. It suggests a political shift and raises questions: Is this a symbolic “tough on immigration” message, an effort to deter migration, or an indirect consequence of broader enforcement policies? The answer might be more complicated than we think.
Two stories among thousands: Héctor Madrid Reyes and Reza Zavvar
Behind every number there’s a face, a family, a life.
One is Héctor Madrid Reyes, a Honduran immigrant who came to the U.S. as a teenager and was awaiting resolution of his asylum claim.
In March, while driving to Home Depot, a car accident changed his life. He didn’t have a license. An officer stopped him and added a DUI charge because Héctor had smoked weed the night before, exactly 18 hours earlier.
His record showed just one prior minor offense, in 2019, for driving without a license. That was enough for ICE. After months of uncertainty, Héctor chose self-deportation to Honduras.
This happens often. Self-deportation is a strategy ICE uses to let people leave the country on their own, avoiding the formal detention and deportation process. In exchange, they are offered financial and logistical assistance. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched programs such as the CBP Home App, which accompanies voluntary departure from the country, providing an airline ticket and a stipend of $1,000 for those who use it.
Paid charter flights have also been implemented, such as the Project Homecoming program, which transported 64 people from Houston to Honduras and Colombia on a voluntary basis.
Héctor had married just three weeks before his arrest. Now, his U.S.-citizen wife is struggling to save enough to visit. “It’s a deep pain,” Héctor told The Marshall Project. “I am not there with my wife, cannot see my mother and give her a hug, or help them with what I earn from my work. Listening to my wife cry on the phone has been something I do not wish for anyone.”
Another case that highlights the system’s arbitrariness is that of Reza Zavvar, an Iranian resident who has lived in the US for over 40 years. Reza was arrested in June 2025 while walking his dog. ICE is pushing to deport him, but not to Iran.
While Reza is originally from Iran, he cannot be deported there because the US government itself has a court order prohibiting his return, as he would face the risk of persecution and political reprisals.
In his younger years, he was an activist opposed to the Iranian regime, and for this, US judges determined that sending him back would constitute a violation of human rights.
Faced with this restriction, ICE is attempting what is known as a third-country removal: sending him to a country with which he has had some kind of previous connection, even if it is minimal (such as having stopped over at an airport or having a distant relative). So where, then? In Zavvar’s case, Australia and Romania are being considered, though Reza has no real ties to either country.
His offense? A decades-old weed conviction. Despite a life fully integrated into the U.S., that charge made him a target.
“No discretion”: The modus operandi and racial profiling
For Tim Warden-Hertz of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project: “It’s not at all about convictions anymore. There is no discretion. It’s just trying to get as many people as they can, any way they can.”
The logic is simple: rack up numbers, even if there’s no risk involved, even if the offenses are years old, even if cannabis is now legal in more than half the country. What’s less clear is why…
Attorneys and advocates warn that some local enforcement practices may disproportionately affect communities of color, particularly when minor infractions are used as grounds for traffic stops. More and more local police are engaging in immigration enforcement, signing agreements with DHS to enforce federal laws during routine stops.
This trend is bolstered by federal programs like 287(g), which allows local police to act as immigration agents during routine operations, for example, traffic stops or patrols, and send them to ICE.
As Paul R. Chavez of Americans for Immigrant Justice puts it: “People are arrested for very minor things, brought to jail, fingerprinted, and then handed over to ICE.”
So what does it mean that, in a country where more and more states are legalizing weed, hundreds of immigrants are being deported for using it or having possessed it years ago?
While the cannabis industry earns billions of dollars and is traded publicly, whole families are being separated because of a minor conviction from another age.
The contrast is clear: freedom and profits for some, deportation and uprooting for others.
This article appeared first on ElPlanteo.com
Photo by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
