U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 35 percent more arrests nationwide in roughly the first three months under President Donald Trump compared to the same period last year, though arrests were down 23 percent over 2014, according to government data.

Nationwide, ICE made 41,898 arrests from Jan. 20 to April 29 compared to 31,128 in that period last year, according to ICE data. In addition, 26 percent of this year’s arrests in that period were of people who had not been convicted of a crime, up from 14 percent last year.

“The priorities have changed (since Obama) … there are significant differences,” Virginia Kice, ICE’s western regional spokeswoman, said Tuesday.

While the agency’s focus is still on those who pose a threat to public safety, today “anyone who is in this country in violation of immigration law is subject to possible arrest,” she said.

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From Jan. 20 to April 29, 2014 during President Barack Obama’s tenure, ICE made a total of 54,584 arrests nationwide — the highest number in the last four years — with 27 percent of the total being those who had not been convicted of a crime, the data shows.

That is most likely due to the effect of the Secure Communities program, said Niels Frenzen, a law professor and a director of the Immigration Clinic at USC. The aggressive ICE program helped the government identify and ultimately take into custody non-citizens who had been arrested.

After Obama announced the end of the program in November 2014, following growing local and state resistance, the number of ICE arrests dropped significantly in subsequent years. The Trump administration resurrected the controversial program in January.

Frenzen said he “wouldn’t make too much” of the most recent data at this point since the Trump administration hasn’t yet hired additional ICE officers or Border Patrol agents. But he said this year’s increase does reflect the Trump administration’s elimination of an Obama-era policy that prioritized noncitizens for deportation who had serious criminal convictions as the administration defined those.

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Frenzen also doesn’t believe there’s significant evidence that ICE is targeting non-citizens who do not have criminal convictions. However, when an ICE officer today encounters someone who previously would not have been a deportation target, they are much more likely to move forward with removal proceedings or execute a removal order against that person, he said.

“The gloves are being taken off,” Frenzen said. “Individual officers are being given freer range, broader authority to make arrests regardless of the circumstances.”

ICE’s L.A. Field Office, which covers the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura, made only 5 percent more arrests in the first three months of Trump’s administration compared to the same period last year. It made a total of 2,273 arrests from Jan. 20 to April 29, up from 2,166 in the same period last year.

Only about 10 percent of the total arrests in the region this year — compared to 26 percent nationally — were of those who did not have a criminal conviction, according to the data. But that number did increase from 87 such arrests last year to 224 this year.

“While the vast majority of ICE’s immigration arrests here in the greater Los Angeles area still involved individuals with criminal histories, the uptick in noncriminal arrests in part reflects the Department of Homeland Security’s expanded enforcement priorities,” Kice said in an email.

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union is “very concerned” about the growth of immigration arrests nationwide over last year, particularly of those who do not to have criminal convictions, said Michael Kaufman, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. The spike of noncriminal arrests in the L.A. region is also troubling, he said.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly issued an enforcement memo in February that made it clear ICE was going to treat as a target “virtually everyone who is here without lawful status” regardless of their criminal history, Kaufman said.

With plans to significantly increase the number of immigration officers in the field, “the concern is the increase we’re seeing now is just the beginning of a sustained campaign to essentially have a massive deportation dragnet in this country,” Kaufman said.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies — which advocates for admitting fewer immigrants into the country — said no one should be surprised by the increased arrests under the Trump administration.

“Secretary Kelly has revised the ICE priorities so ICE officers are no longer forced to look the other way at the individuals they encounter when they are doing their job and are deportable but were not allowed to take action with the old priorities,” Vaughan said.