Newly released data has exposed a significant gap between the Trump administration's public rhetoric on immigration enforcement and its on-the-ground actions. Records show that nearly 75,000 individuals with no criminal record were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the first nine months of Donald Trump's presidency.
Contradiction Between Rhetoric and Reality
The figures, obtained by the University of California, Berkeley's Deportation Data Project via a lawsuit, cover the period from 20 January to 15 October 2017. They reveal that more than one-third of the roughly 222,000 people arrested by ICE in that timeframe had no prior criminal history. This directly contradicts the White House's frequent assertion that its immigration crackdown was focused primarily on violent criminals and "the worst of the worst."
"It contradicts what the administration has been saying about people who are convicted criminals and that they are going after the worst of the worst," stated Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, in comments to NBC News. The data indicates ICE was averaging approximately 824 arrests per day, a figure notably short of a reported internal agency goal of 3,000 daily arrests.
Broader Enforcement Trends and Funding Surge
This pattern appears consistent across different arms of US immigration enforcement. The data does not include Border Patrol arrests, but separate analyses suggest similar trends. For instance, during a recent operation in Charlotte, North Carolina, fewer than one-third of those detained by Border Patrol had prior criminal classifications, according to internal Homeland Security documents seen by CBS News.
Furthermore, a snapshot from mid-November, based on the TRAC immigration database, showed that about 73% of the 65,000 people in immigration detention following arrests by ICE and Border Patrol had no previous criminal conviction. Most convictions among the remainder were for minor offences like traffic violations.
Unprecedented Scale and Alleged Abuses
In pursuit of record arrest and deportation numbers, officials have detained numerous US citizens, including children. Agents have also faced accusations of conducting random sweeps that used racial profiling to target Latino communities. The scope of this enforcement is poised to expand dramatically.
The Trump administration has directed unprecedented funding of $170 billion to ICE and the Border Patrol as part of the "Big, Beautiful Bill" spending package passed earlier this year. This financial commitment signals a significant intensification of immigration enforcement efforts, even as the agency has stopped publishing detailed arrest data at the start of Trump's second term.
