President Donald Trump has pledged to deport “the worst of the worst.” He steadily speaks at public appearances in regards to the numerous “harmful criminals” — amongst them murderers, rapists and baby predators — from around the globe he says entered the U.S. illegally underneath the Biden administration. He guarantees to expel thousands and thousands of migrants within the largest deportation program in American historical past to guard law-abiding residents from the violent threats he says they pose.
However authorities knowledge round ongoing detentions tells a special story.
There was an enhance of arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since Trump started his second time period, with studies of raids throughout the nation. But the vast majority of individuals at the moment detained by ICE don’t have any legal convictions. Of those that do, comparatively few have been convicted of high-level crimes — a stark distinction to the chilling nightmare Trump describes to help his border safety agenda.
“There’s a deep disconnect between the rhetoric and the fact,” mentioned Ahilan Arulanantham, co-faculty director of the UCLA Regulation College’s Heart for Immigration Regulation and Coverage. “This administration, and in addition within the prior Trump administration, they constantly declare to be going after the worst of the worst and simply discuss immigration enforcement as if it’s all about going after violent, harmful individuals with in depth legal histories. And but overwhelmingly, it’s individuals they’re focusing on for arrest who don’t have any legal historical past of any type.”
A have a look at the numbers
The most recent ICE statistics present that as of June 29, there have been 57,861 individuals detained by ICE, 41,495 — 71.7% — of whom had no legal convictions. That features 14,318 individuals with pending legal costs and 27,177 who’re topic to immigration enforcement, however don’t have any recognized legal convictions or pending legal costs.
Every detainee is assigned a risk degree by ICE on a scale of 1 to three, with one being the very best. These and not using a legal file are categorized as having “no ICE risk degree.” As of June 23, the newest knowledge obtainable, 84% of individuals detained at 201 amenities nationwide weren’t given a risk degree. One other 7% had been graded as a degree 1 risk, 4% had been degree 2 and 5% had been degree 3.
“President Trump has justified this immigration agenda partially by making false claims that migrants are driving violent crime in the US, and that’s simply merely not true,” mentioned Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the justice program on the Brennan Heart for Justice. “There’s no analysis and proof that helps his claims.”
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary on the Division of Homeland Safety, referred to as the evaluation that ICE isn’t focusing on immigrants with a legal file “false” and mentioned that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has directed ICE “to focus on the worst of the worst—together with gang members, murderers, and rapists.” She counted detainees with convictions, in addition to these with pending costs, as “legal unlawful aliens.”
Nonpublic knowledge obtained by the Cato Institute exhibits that as of June 14, 65% of the greater than 204,000 individuals processed into the system by ICE for the reason that begin of fiscal yr 2025, which started Oct. 1, 2024, had no legal convictions. Of these with convictions, solely 6.9% had dedicated a violent crime, whereas 53% had dedicated nonviolent crimes that fell into three fundamental classes — immigration, site visitors, or vice crimes.
Whole ICE arrests shot up on the finish of Could after White Home Deputy Chief of Employees Stephen Miller gave the company a quota of three,000 arrests a day, up from 650 a day within the first 5 months of Trump’s second time period. ICE arrested almost 30% extra individuals in Could than in April, in response to the Transactional Data Clearinghouse, or TRAC. That quantity rose once more in June, by one other 28%.
The Cato Institute discovered that between Feb. 8 and Could 17, the each day common of “noncriminals” processed into the system ranged from 421 to 454. Within the following two weeks on the finish of Could, that quantity rose to 678 after which rose to 927 within the interval from June 1 by way of 14.
“What you’re seeing is that this large enhance in funding to detain individuals, take away individuals, implement immigration legal guidelines,” Eisen mentioned. “And what we’re seeing is that numerous these individuals again to form of the unique query you requested, these aren’t people who find themselves harmful.”
Administration says focus is on harmful criminals
Abigail Jackson, a White Home spokesperson, mentioned the administration is extremely centered on rooting out unvetted criminals who’re within the nation illegally.
“Simply this week, the Administration performed a profitable operation rescuing kids from labor exploitation at a marijuana facility in California, and continued arresting the worst of the worst – together with murderers, pedophiles, gang members, and rapists,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Any suggestion that the Administration will not be laser centered on these harmful criminals is flat out unsuitable.”
Whereas most ICE detainees aren’t convicted criminals, there are detainees who’ve dedicated severe crimes. On Friday, the administration launched data on 5 high-level offenders who had been arrested.
Throughout his marketing campaign, Trump highlighted a number of instances the place immigrants within the nation illegally had been arrested for horrific crimes. Amongst them: The killing of 22-year-old Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing scholar who was slain final yr by a Venezuelan man within the U.S. illegally. Jose Ibarra was discovered responsible of homicide and different crimes in Riley’s February 2024 killing and sentenced him to life in jail with out the opportunity of parole. Ibarra is looking for a brand new trial.
Trump in January signed into legislation the Laken Riley Act, which requires the detention of unauthorized immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes.
Immigrants aren’t driving violent crime in US, research discover
Analysis has constantly discovered, nevertheless, that immigrants aren’t driving violent crime within the U.S. and that they really commit fewer crimes than native-born Individuals. A 2023 working paper from the Nationwide Bureau of Financial Analysis, for instance, reported that immigrants for 150 years have had decrease incarceration charges than these born within the U.S. Actually, the charges have declined since 1960 — in response to the paper, immigrants had been 60% much less prone to be incarcerated.
Consultants say the false rhetoric popping out of the Trump administration creates actual hurt.
“It makes individuals in immigrant communities really feel focused and marginalized,” Arulanantham mentioned. “It creates extra political and social house for hate in all its types, together with hate crime in opposition to immigrant communities.”
Eisen famous that the impression extends to different communities as nicely.
“All Individuals ought to need secure and thriving communities and this concept that the president of the US is making deceptive statements in regards to the fact and distorting actuality will not be the best way to ship public security,” she mentioned.
