Trump's ICE crackdown in cities captures thousands of migrants, with less than 30% having criminal convictions

Over recent months, former President Donald Trump, along with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, launched a series of aggressive immigration enforcement operations targeting major U.S. cities. The stated goal was to apprehend the nations worst of the worst and violent offenders among migrants. These high-profile initiatives resulted in thousands of arrests, but a large proportion of those detained had no criminal history.

Analysis of arrest records by The New York Times, based on data from the Deportation Data Project, shows that fewer than 30 percent of those detained had prior criminal convictions. Convictions for violent crimes were even rarer. Most offenses among those arrested were related to driving under the influence or other minor traffic violations.

This pattern reflects broader trends in national ICE data during Trumps mass deportation campaign. By October, only 28 percent of individuals in ICE custody had criminal records, down from 46 percent at the start of the year. Operations in Democratic-led cities mirrored these numbers, with less than 30 percent of those detained having any previous convictions.

In August, Trump declared a crime emergency in Washington, D.C., sending federal agents and National Guard troops into the capital. While Trump claimed the city was overrun by violent criminals and gangs, government data showed that more than 80 percent of those detained had no prior criminal record. Between August and mid-October, ICE arrested over 1,100 individuals in D.C., more than triple the number of arrests in the city during the first seven months of the year. This surge also disproportionately affected migrants without any criminal history, according to a Washington Post analysis.

In Chicago, only 15 percent of detainees in the weeks-long Operation Midway Blitz led by Customs and Border Protection had prior convictions, and just 3 percent had been convicted of violent crimes. The majority67 percentwere held for civil immigration violations such as overstaying visas or entering the country illegally.

Nationally, nearly three-quarters of immigrants taken into ICE custody since October had no prior criminal convictions, according to leaked nonpublic ICE data analyzed by the Cato Institute. Almost half of detainees booked from October through mid-November had not been charged with any crime, and only 5 percent had convictions for violent offenses. Homeland Security disputed these figures, calling them inaccurate and unsupported.

The surge in arrests has been driven by operations in cities with large immigrant populations, swift detentions of individuals leaving court hearings, and a Supreme Court ruling allowing federal agents to profile suspected undocumented residents, enabling street-level sweeps. Investigations have also revealed that some U.S. citizens were mistakenly detained, though charges were frequently dropped.

Currently, over 60,000 people are held in ICE custody nationwide, marking a record high. The Trump administration is on track to deport over 600,000 individuals within the first year of its second term. New operations are underway in Minneapolis and New Orleans, with Homeland Security highlighting arrests of child sex offenders, domestic abusers, and gang members. Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin emphasized the goal of ensuring Americans can live without fear of violence from criminal illegal aliens.

Author: Noah Whitman