President Donald Trump promised to deport “the worst of the worst.” He often talks in public shows about the number of “dangerous criminals” – among their killers, rapists and child predators – from all over the world, which he said illegally entered the United States under the Biden Administration. He promises to send millions of migrants to the largest deportation program in American history to protect citizens who follow laws from violent threats, which they say they raise.
However, the government’s data on ongoing arrests tell a different story.
Since Trump started its second term, US immigration and customs implementation reports on raids across the country have increased during the US immigration and customs implementation. However, most people currently detained by ICE have no criminal records. Of those who do this, relatively few have been convicted of a high-level crime-green contrast to a cool nightmare short describes to support its wall security agenda.
“There is a deep alienation between rhetoric and reality,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, Director of the UCLA Law School at the UCLA School of Immigration Law and Politics. “This administration, including in the previous Trump administration, constantly claims to go after the worst of the worst and simply talks about immigration as if everything is related to violent, dangerous people with a great criminal history.
Look at the numbers
The latest ICE statistics show that as of June 29, There were 57,861 people detained in ICE, 41 495 – 71.7% – of which they had no criminal sentence. This includes 14 3,318 people with the expected criminal charges and 27,177, which are subject to immigration but have no known criminal sentences or criminal charges.
Each detainee is classified as a threat from 1 to 3 and one is the highest. Those who have no criminal record are classified as “no threat to ice level”. From June 23 The last available data in 84% of people detained in 201 offices across the country were not a threat level. Another 7% was rated as a level 1 threat, 4% was level 2 and 5% was level 3.
“President Trump partially justified this immigration agenda by providing false claims that migrants are promoting violent crimes in the US, and that is simply not true,” said Lauren-Burooke Eisen, chief director of the Brennan Justice Center. “There is no research or evidence to support his statements.”
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant to the Secretary of the Homeland Security Department, called the estimation that ICE did not interfere with immigrants with criminal records, and said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem pointed to the ICE to “pointing to the worst worst, including gang members, killers and rape.” She counted the detained convictions, as well as those who have accusations of “criminal illegal foreigners”.
Non -public data obtained by the CATO Institute show that from 14 June. 65% of more than 204,000 people were processed into the system ICE from the beginning of the 2025 fiscal year in 2024. October 1 Of those who have beliefs, only 6.9% committed a violent crime, and 53% committed non -violent crimes, which were in three main categories – immigration, traffic or vice presidents.
A common ice arrest shot in late May after Stephen Miller, deputy chief of the White House, gave the agency 3,000 arrests a day compared to 650 a day in the first five months of Trump’s second term. According to operations in the cling, or TRC, ICE was arrested in May of almost 30% more than April. This number rose again in June, another 28%.
The CATO Institute found that from February 8th. By May 17th. The average day of the recycled “non -criminal” day ranged from 421 to 454. During the next two weeks, the number increased to 678 at the end of May and then increased to 927 from 1 June.
“What you see is such a huge increase in funding for people, eliminating people, implementing immigration laws,” said the gait. “And what we see is that many of these people come back to the original question you ask. These are not dangerous people.”
The administration says focusing on dangerous criminals
The White House spokesman, Abigail Jackson, said the administration was intensively focused on illegally rooting criminals in the country.
“It was only this week that the administration performed a successful operation, rescuing children from labor exploitation in Marijuana’s office in California, and continued to arrest the worst of the worst – including killers, pedophiles, gang members and rapists,” she wrote. In the letter. “Any proposal that the administration is not a laser focused on these dangerous criminals is wrong.”
Although most of the ICE detainees are not convicted of criminals, there are detainees who have committed serious crimes. On Friday, the administration published information about five high -level offenders who were arrested.
During their campaign, Trump emphasized several cases where the country’s immigrants were illegally arrested for terrible crimes. Among them: The 22-year-old Laken Riley, the murder of the Georgian nursing student, who was killed by Venezuela’s husband last year. Ibarra was found guilty of murder and other crimes Riley in 2024. February During the murder, he sentenced him to life imprisonment without probation. Ibarra seeks a new trial.
January Trump signed a law by Laken Riley, which requires the arrest of illegal immigrants accused of stealing and violent crimes.
Immigrants do not lead violent crimes, found to be
However, investigations have been constantly found that immigrants do not lead to violent crimes in the US and that they actually commit less crimes than local Americans. For example, 2023 The working document of the National Bureau of Economic Research reported that the percentage of imprisonment for immigrants was lower than those born in the US, that since 1960 The rates have fallen since 1960, according to the document, immigrants were 60% less prone to imprisonment.
Experts say that Trump’s administration’s outgoing false rhetoric causes real damage.
“It makes people of immigrant communities feel purposefully and repelled,” Arlanantham said. “It creates more political and social hatred space in all forms, including hatred crimes against immigrant communities.”
The gait noted that the effect includes other communities.
“All Americans should want safe and prosperous communities, and the idea that the US president makes misleading statements about truth and distorting reality is not a way to give public safety,” she said.
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