Tracking the illegal immigration crackdown

During the 2024 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump insisted that his administration would take aggressive action to shut down the southern border and deport all illegal immigrants, an estimated 12 million people. Doing so would promote public safety, Trump argued, by getting violent criminals off American streets—criminals whom former President Joe Biden’s administration had allowed into the country.

In the first weeks of the new administration, federal authorities arrested thousands of immigrants in cities across the country. Officials said they aimed to arrest “the worst first,” meaning the focus would be on violent criminals.

The White House’s efforts have yielded the arrests of many suspects accused of violent crimes, but some experts say the administration is mischaracterizing how many illegal immigrants it arrests and how many are violent criminals. Others argue the administration is following through on its campaign promises and protecting the American economy.

“It’s not just a focus on violent criminals,” National Immigration Forum President Jennie Murray said. Her organization says roughly 52% of the illegal immigrants in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s custody have no criminal record, citing statistics from Syracuse University.

Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University professor who researches U.S. immigration policy, said the percentage of illegal immigrants getting arrested who aren’t violent offenders is probably much higher, adding that immigrants on average commit fewer crimes than U.S. citizens.

“The administration claims that they’re going after serious criminals. Just simply not true,” Kocher said. “They are arresting some people with serious criminal convictions. But the main growth that I’ve seen, in terms of what the data says … is among people without criminal histories. So that’s really important. This is not about making Americans safe.”

But Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Syracuse University numbers saying a majority of illegal immigrants arrested don’t have criminal records are skewed. The number of people in ICE custody also includes people arrested while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. And those people don’t have criminal records, according to the database.

For arrests inside the United States, most of those who are being arrested are criminals, Vaughan said. “According to [ICE’s] stats, I think it was about 16% of the people who were booked into ICE custody in the interior were not facing criminal charges or convicted of a crime already,” she explained. “I don’t consider that to be a lot.”

In a post-election interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump said that all illegal immigrants in the United States needed to be deported because they had entered the country illegally. People who were going to be a part of the United States needed to meet certain standards, Trump argued. “They have to love our country,” he said.

“Illegal immigration is a criminal enterprise, or, it’s organized crime,” Vaughan said, adding that people illegally entering the United States are often victims of human trafficking, sometimes without even knowing. “They think that this is a contract, an acceptable contract, that they’re going to work off their smuggling fee—100 hours a week—and being exploited,” she said. She also said the illegal migrant workers distort the U.S. labor market and stifle modernization while burdening the welfare system.

Whether illegal immigrants should be deported or not, some experts argue the administration hasn’t been transparent with the public about the total number of illegal immigrants arrested. The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement last week saying ICE had arrested more than 20,000 illegal immigrants during the first month of the Trump administration. The department called that a 627% increase in arrests compared to the Biden administration’s total number of 33,000 at-large arrests during 2024.

At-large arrests refer to when ICE agents make an arrest out on the streets. A criminal arrest occurs when Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ICE, arrests an illegal immigrant for participating in criminal activity. A custodial arrest is when ICE arrests an individual for an immigration-related violation after they’ve already been arrested by local law enforcement for another reason.

Compared to all arrests of illegal immigrants in 2024 as reported by ICE in December, the Trump administration in its first month more than doubled the average number of monthly arrests under Biden.

“20,000 is a lot of arrests in a month,” Kocher said. “But it’s not quite as dramatic as they make it seem.”

During the first week or so of the administration, ICE posted on social media its daily number of illegal immigrant arrests. On Jan. 23, ICE posted its first daily total, saying it made 538 arrests. On Jan. 26, the agency said it arrested 956 people in one day, and the next day, 1,179. The agency said it arrested 864 people on Jan. 31.

But after that, the administration stopped posting its daily arrest numbers. WORLD reached out to ICE to verify whether its statement about the 20,000 arrests referred to its total number of arrests or its at-large arrests. WORLD also asked the agency to confirm why it stopped publishing its daily arrest totals. The agency responded by referring WORLD to arrest statistics that were last updated on Sept. 30.

“The average daily arrests for the full month was something like 667 a day,” Kocher said. “That’s half of their best day.”

Late last month, DHS said it would begin fully enforcing the Immigration and Nationality Act. The department told illegal immigrants that they would face criminal penalties if they didn’t willfully leave the country, provide authorities with their current address, or register themselves with authorities and agree to be fingerprinted.

The language in the DHS statement indicated the agency hoped to compel many illegal immigrants to deport themselves. The agency said illegal immigrants leaving the country on their own was safer for law enforcement and the general public. Very few illegal immigrants are likely to respond to the announcement by registering, said Murray with the National Immigration Forum.

Kocher agreed, arguing that the registry order would likely drive people further underground. “These are people who are going be deported,” he said. “So to comply with registry is just to basically turn yourself in and make yourself available for deportation.”

Vaughan disagreed, saying that already there was anecdotal evidence that many illegal immigrants were on their way out. And more data could be incoming from school enrollment numbers, U.S. Census Bureau data, and foreign consulates showing that illegal immigrants had departed or were trying to depart the country.

Kocher emphasized that deportation was not simply a statistical problem—even for the people who supported it. “Even people who might, you know, say that they want to see a lot of people deported from the country … think that that means that someone else is going to get deported,” Kocher said. “It sort of often shocks people when it hits close to home and it’s someone in your church or your workplace or your community.”