Federal immigration cases are the largest single offense category in the U.S. Sentencing Commission's FY2025 file — 25,119 of 66,662 cases, or 37.7 percent. The site's earlier October lookup excluded this category entirely. It is now in the lookup.
Texas accounts for 14,309 of those cases — 57 percent of immigration sentencing nationwide. Arizona adds 3,014, New Mexico 2,191, and California 1,533. Border districts drive the volume.
Almost every defendant receives a prison term
Of the 25,119 immigration cases, 24,006 — 95.6 percent — received a prison sentence. Among the 30 offense categories in this file, immigration's imprisonment rate is among the highest; drug trafficking is higher at 96.6 percent, and several smaller categories exceed both.
0.3 percent of immigration defendants were tried rather than pleading, one of the lowest trial rates in the file. Guilty pleas are nearly universal.
The median sentence varies by jurisdiction
The national figure this site does not compute is a national median — adding jurisdiction medians would be wrong. What the lookup shows is the median for each jurisdiction separately.
Across the jurisdictions in this lookup, medians range from near zero to 36 months. Connecticut had the highest immigration median in the file at 36 months (5 cases). Delaware and Minnesota had medians at or near zero, which typically reflects time-served sentences. Texas was 6.3 months and Arizona 6.0 months.
The range is explained in part by case mix. The two most common immigration offenses — illegal reentry after deportation under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 and alien smuggling — carry different statutory ranges and guideline ranges. A defendant charged with illegal reentry who has a prior aggravated-felony conviction faces a guideline range that starts far above one who has no prior conviction and no prior entry. Jurisdictions handle different proportions of these cases, and this file does not distinguish them. The median reflects that mix, not a single uniform offense.
Guideline range position
69.7 percent of immigration defendants were sentenced within the guideline range — higher than the 51.5 percent across all categories combined. Government-sponsored departures account for 16.7 percent of immigration cases. Most of that is the §5K3.1 Early Disposition Program, also called fast track, which allows a below-range sentence when a defendant promptly pleads to a charge listed in the program. Only 0.8 percent received a §5K1.1 substantial-assistance departure. Judge-initiated below-range sentences are 7.0 percent. Above-range sentences are 6.6 percent.
One life sentence
One life sentence appears in the Immigration category across all jurisdictions. It is counted separately and is not in the median.
What is not on this page
The lookup shows aggregate figures. It does not show which statute of conviction applied, what the defendant's prior criminal history was, or how the guideline range was calculated for any individual. No defendant record is on this page. These figures are observational. They are not adjusted for case mix, prior history, or other legally relevant sentencing factors. An association in a table is not a cause.