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Research shows U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement isn't just targeting people with criminal records in New Mexico during mass arrests of immigrants, and says deportations are harming local economies.

The Immigration Research Initiative report finds that when arrests rose from January to May this year, many of those detained had no criminal record. Although President Donald Trump campaigned on deporting immigrants who commit "heinous crimes," report co-author Chloe East, an associate professor of economics at the University of Colorado, said that isn't who’s being arrested.

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"The majority who are currently impacted have no criminal conviction," she said, "and instead, the only potential violation they have is a civil violation of not complying with immigration law."

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research-focused nonprofit, supports these findings with data showing more than 70 percent of people detained had no criminal record. TRAC's research includes data showing immigrants arrested during past mass deportations had at least minor criminal convictions.

Another report from the University of Pennsylvania claims mass deportations may have drastic economic consequences, depleting a state's workforce and shrinking wages. East added that just the fear of mass arrest creates major challenges to the economy.

"Immigrants are much more fearful about leaving their home when they hear about these raids," she said, "so they often don’t go to work, or don’t go to work as frequently as they would have otherwise, which makes it really hard for businesses to continue to function."

New Mexico is home to at least 63,000 immigrants who lack legal status in the United States.

Researchers also note ICE is under pressure to meet new quotas established by the Trump administration, but the agency hasn't met them yet. East said ICE is responding to political rhetoric instead of a real problem.

"We see ICE responding to the higher quota of the number of daily arrests," she said, "nd we also see ICE targeting the Democratically controlled cities Trump and his 'border czar' were very explicit they wanted to target."