President Trump has pledged to deport “the worst of the worst.” He incessantly speaks at public appearances in regards to the numerous “harmful criminals” — amongst them murderers, rapists and youngster predators — from all over the world he says entered the U.S. illegally below 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 inform a special story.
There was a rise of arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since Trump started his second time period, with reviews of raids throughout the nation. But nearly all of individuals at the moment detained by ICE haven’t any prison convictions. Of those that do, comparatively few have been convicted of high-level crimes — a stark distinction to the chilling nightmare Trump describes to assist his border safety agenda.
“There’s a deep disconnect between the rhetoric and the truth,” stated Ahilan Arulanantham, co-faculty director of the UCLA Legislation College’s Middle for Immigration Legislation and Coverage. “This administration, and in addition within the prior Trump administration, they persistently declare to be going after the worst of the worst and simply speak about immigration enforcement as if it’s all about going after violent, harmful individuals with in depth prison histories. And but overwhelmingly, it’s individuals they’re concentrating on for arrest who haven’t any prison historical past of any variety.”
A take 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, or 71.7%, of whom had no prison convictions. That features 14,318 individuals with pending prison fees and 27,177 who’re topic to immigration enforcement however haven’t any recognized prison convictions or pending prison fees.
Every detainee is assigned a menace stage by ICE on a scale of 1 to three, with 1 being the best. These and not using a prison file are labeled as having “no ICE menace stage.” As of June 23, the newest knowledge obtainable, 84% of individuals detained at 201 services nationwide weren’t given a menace stage. A further 7% had been graded as a stage 1 menace, 4% had been stage 2 and 5% had been stage 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,” stated Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the justice program on the Brennan Middle for Justice. “There’s no analysis and proof that helps his claims.”
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary on the Division of Homeland Safety, known as the evaluation that ICE isn’t concentrating on immigrants with a prison file “false” and stated that Homeland Safety 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 fees, as “prison unlawful aliens.”
Nonpublic knowledge obtained by the Cato Institute present 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 prison convictions. Of these with convictions, solely 6.9% had dedicated a violent crime, whereas 53% had dedicated nonviolent crimes that fell into three essential classes — immigration, visitors or vice crimes.
Complete 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 keeping with the Transactional Information Entry Clearinghouse. That quantity rose once more in June, by a further 28%.
The Cato Institute discovered that from Feb. 8 to Could 17, the every 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 from June 1 by way of June 14.
“What you’re seeing is that this enormous enhance in funding to detain individuals, take away individuals, implement immigration legal guidelines,” Eisen stated. “And what we’re seeing is that … these are usually not people who find themselves harmful.”
Deal with harmful criminals
Abigail Jackson, a White Home spokesperson, stated the administration is extremely targeted 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 a latest e mail. “Any suggestion that the Administration just isn’t laser targeted on these harmful criminals is flat out unsuitable.”
Throughout his marketing campaign, Trump highlighted a number of circumstances during which 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 to life in jail with out the potential for 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 not driving violent crime
Analysis has persistently discovered, nevertheless, that immigrants are usually not driving violent crime within the U.S. and that they 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. The charges have declined since 1960, in keeping with the paper, and immigrants had been 60% much less prone to be incarcerated.
Specialists 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 stated. “It creates extra political and social house for hate in all its kinds, together with hate crime in opposition to immigrant communities.”
Eisen famous that the impact extends to different communities as properly.
“All Individuals ought to need protected and thriving communities and this concept that the president of the US is making deceptive statements in regards to the reality and distorting actuality just isn’t the best way to ship public security,” she stated.
Goldin writes for the Related Press.
