Since the start of the current administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained over 50,000 undocumented immigrants in the United States. Since the beginning of the year, there has been a significant increase in the number of detentions, raising concerns and sparking debate in society.
According to official data, published by The Guardian, as of June 15, ICE has taken 56,397 immigrants into custody as part of the Trump administration’s deportation campaign, but only 28.3% of them had criminal records, including minor traffic offenses.
The information sharply contradicts Donald Trump’s claims that authorities are targeting “criminals” for deportation as part of his aggressive anti-immigration agenda.
According to data released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University in New York, as the pace of arrests and detentions by the Department of Homeland Security increases, the number of immigrants with a criminal history decreases.
This is despite the Trump administration justifying its intense deportation campaign as supposedly targeting individuals with criminal records.
However, according to TRAC, as of June 15, 71.7% of those detained had no criminal record.
“That means only 28.3% had been convicted of any crime, including many who had only been convicted of traffic violations or minor offenses. Or an infraction that resulted solely in a fine, such as not keeping a dog on a leash, fishing without a permit, or driving a vehicle with a broken taillight,” TRAC’s report states.
ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) programs are monitoring 183,756 families and single individuals, according to data updated as of June 14.
TRAC Reports noted that it adjusted its definition of criminal records. Previously, anyone registered by ICE with “pending criminal charges” was identified as such. From this update forward, detainees with pending charges will not be considered as having a criminal record.
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