The libertarian Cato Institute this week further undermined the Trump administration’s claims that it is targeting “the worst of the worst” with its violent immigration operations in communities across the United States by publishing data about the criminal histories—or lack thereof—of immigrants who have been arrested and booked into detention.
David J. Bier, the institute’s director of immigration studies, previously reported in June that 65% of people taken by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had no convictions, and 93% had nonviolent convictions.
Monday evening, Bier shared a new nonpublic dataset leaked to Cato. Of the 44,882 people booked into ICE custody from when the fiscal year began on October 1 through November 15, 73% had no criminal convictions. For that share, around two-thirds also had no pending charges.
The data also show that most of those recently booked into ICE detention with criminal convictions had faced immigration, traffic, or vice charges. Just 5% had a violent conviction, and 3% had a property conviction.
“Other data sources support the conclusions from the number of ICE book-ins,” Bier wrote, citing information on agency arrests from January to late July—or the first six months of President Donald Trump’s second term—that the Deportation Data Project acquired via a public records request.
The data show that as of January 1, just before former President Joe Biden left office, 149 immigrants without charges or convictions were arrested by ICE. That number emerged by 1,500% under Trump: It peaked at 4,072 in June and ultimately was 2,386 by the end of July—when 67% of all arrestees had no criminal convictions, and 39% had neither convictions nor charges.
Bier also pointed to publicly available data about current detainees on ICE’s website, emphasizing that the number of people in detention with no convictions or pending charges “increased a staggering 2,370% since January from fewer than 1,000 to over 21,000.”
In addition to publishing an article on Cato’s site, Bier detailed the findings on the social media platform X, where various critics of the administration’s immigration crackdown weighed in. Among them was Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), who said: “These are the facts. I’ve spoken to dozens of people held inside ICE detention centers in Arizona and these tracks.”
US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) declared: “This is the scandal. Trump isn’t targeting dangerous people. He’s targeting peaceful immigrants. Almost exclusively.”
The US Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, also jumped in, as did DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. Responding to Murphy, McLaughlin said in part: “This is so dumb it hurts my soul. This is a made-up pie chart with no legitimate data behind it—just propaganda to undermine the brave work of DHS law enforcement and fool Americans.”
