A new report out from the libertarian group Cato Institute finds the majority of people booked into ICE custody have no criminal record.
The Trump administration has insisted its mass deportation campaign is targeting criminals.
But, according to the new report, issued by Cato at the end of last month, some 73% — or nearly three in four people — have no criminal conviction. The majority of those who do have a record had non-violent crime, immigration or traffic convictions.
The report uses ICE booking data as well as publicly available detention data and information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
It shows only 5% of some 44,800 booking into ICE custody between October and mid-November had violent criminal convictions, according to data analyzed in the report, marking a significant shift from the Biden administration — when one in 10 arrests were of people without criminal records or pending charges.
“The ICE data show that the share of immigrants detained after an ICE arrest who had criminal convictions has fallen in half since January from 62% of detainees to 31% in November,” the report reads. “At the same time, the share of detainees without a criminal conviction or criminal charge has exploded from 6% to 40% of detainees.”
More than 65,000 people were in ICE detention as of Nov. 16, according to data analyzed by the group TRAC.
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In a weeklong series, KJZZ looks at Arizona’s connection to the Japanese internment policies that were instituted following Pearl Harbor, and how it ties into the broader story of racialized public policy. Gabriel Pietrorazio joined The Show for a closer look at the series. -
That includes more than 11,000 non-Mexican deportees, according to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. -
The Pinal County Attorney’s Office announced this week that it’s joining certain violent-crime task forces led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The same deal with the Phoenix Police Department was canceled more than a decade ago. -
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security have accused Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva of “faking outrage” over her protest at an ICE raid west of downtown Tucson last week. -
Long before World War II, the U.S. Army rounded up Native Americans onto reservations — drawing in their new boundaries. And in Arizona, the federal government once again looked to those lands for another minority population — Japanese Americans — also forcibly rounded up by the military after the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941.
