EXCLUSIVE — The Trump administration has come under fire in recent weeks for appearing to target noncriminals who are in the United States illegally, but internal government data shared with the Washington Examiner revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is still apprehending primarily people with criminal histories.
Since January, ICE has taken nearly 150,000 people into federal custody — 100,000 of whom either had pending criminal charges filed against them or had been previously convicted of a crime, according to ICE. About 67% of illegal immigrants arrested had a criminal charge pending or had been convicted.
The 67% figure is down slightly from roughly 75% in the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
However, President Donald Trump’s promise to go after the “worst of the worst” remains far from completion, and his opponents, largely Democrats and immigrant-rights advocates, want to see less focus on noncriminals. Recent arrests indicate the Trump administration is increasingly focused on illegal immigrants, regardless of their criminal background.
What Trump promised
On Jan. 20, Trump previewed in his inaugural address that he would “begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
Trump and Vice President JD Vance have also said there are 500,000 to 1 million criminal illegal immigrants residing in the country.
In addition to criminals, the Trump administration wants to remove the people who have already been ordered by a federal immigration judge to be removed.
At last count, roughly 1.5 million people have been ordered deported but have yet to be removed from the U.S., according to a July report by the New York Post.
The same report cited 425,000 criminal illegal immigrants still at large in the U.S. and under ICE’s scope.
What the data show
ICE moved to ramp up arrests and deportations on Day One of the Trump administration. When arrests were not soaring one month into Trump’s term, the administration pushed aside acting ICE director Caleb Vitello due to higher-ups’ concerns that arrests and deportations had not occurred fast enough.
In the first 100 days, ICE began going after criminals. However, White House “border czar” Tom Homan warned of collateral arrests, or detaining people found in vehicles, workplaces, or homes with people whom their officers were out to arrest.
ICE’s data showed that between February and April, roughly one-quarter of arrestees did not have a criminal history compared to the three-quarters who did.
In May, nearly one-third of illegal immigrants arrested were not people with criminal histories, a slight increase from the beginning of the year. Those with criminal histories may have been arrested or charged in the past, which may remain on one’s record, but not been convicted.
By early summer, ICE was instructed by White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller to target immigrants at courthouses, farms, Home Depots, and 7-Eleven stores.
Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney and policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, explained that encouraging ICE officers to go into places that they have not historically targeted to make arrests led to more arrests of people without criminal records.
“Where they’re arresting people is probably also really impacting these numbers because when you think about who is getting picked up at an ICE check-in or at immigration court, I would think that those would not necessarily be these criminal conviction or pending criminal charge people,” Bush-Joseph said. “On the contrary, they might be people who’ve been here and who were applying for asylum or other relief.”
By June, the number of arrestees with a criminal charge or conviction was much narrower than that of noncriminal arrestees. Just over 19,300 criminal illegal immigrants were nabbed that month compared to 15,657 noncriminals.
ICE had arrested 11,886 illegal immigrants with criminal histories in the first three weeks of July, compared to 7,877 noncriminals.
Critics call data into question
David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank in Washington, argued that when specifically looking at convictions, just 35% of all illegal immigrants booked into custody since the start of fiscal 2025 last October were convicted criminals.
That would mean another roughly one-third had pending criminal charges and were going through the justice system, but had not been found guilty yet. Bier also said criminal offenses in many cases were less-serious crimes, in his opinion.
“As of June 14, ICE had booked into detention 204,297 individuals (since October 1, 2024, the start of fiscal 2025),” Bier wrote in a June blog post. ”More than 93% of ICE book-ins were never convicted of any violent offenses. About nine in ten had no convictions for violent or property offenses. Most convictions (53%) fell into three main categories: immigration, traffic, or nonviolent vice crimes.”
ICE has continued to focus on criminals, but is affected by people whom state and local police encounter and turn over in cooperation with ICE, according to Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and now a resident fellow in law and policy for the Center of Immigration Studies in Washington.
ICE ARRESTS NEARLY 150,000 AS TRUMP OPERATION RAMPS UP
“Most detainees come from state and local arrests,” Arthur said. “Traffic stops are the most common.”
As seen during a ride-along with Florida Highway Patrol in southeast Florida in July, illegal immigrants who were discovered during traffic stops were turned over to federal immigration authorities. While many were not the “worst of the worst” and did not have criminal histories, they will be counted in ICE’s arrests, but not because ICE sought out noncriminals.
CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this story referred to illegal immigrants who had pending charges and criminal convictions as criminals. The updated version clarifies that a person with a criminal history may have a previous conviction or a prior arrest that did not result in a conviction.
