Fewer than one in seven of those arrested by ICE since Donald Trump returned to office had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s own data.
A previously undisclosed document, obtained by CBS News, shows that only a small fraction of the nearly 400,000 migrants detained by ICE since last January are violent offenders, undermining the administration’s vow to target only “the worst of the worst” immigrants as part of its hardline mass deportation campaign.
The data also shows that 42 percent of the 392,619 ICE arrests between Jan. 21, 2025, and Jan. 31, 2026 involved people with no prior criminal charges or convictions. Nearly 40 percent were accused only of civil immigration offenses, such as living in the U.S. illegally, with around 11,000 accused of allegations such as interfering with ICE’s operations.
The Trump administration has been widely condemned for the aggressive tactics of masked ICE agents in U.S. cities as they carry out immigration raids. The president and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi “ICE Barbie” Noem have repeatedly rejected the criticism by claiming officers are removing “murderers, pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and terrorists” from the U.S.
However, the official statistics from DHS’s own internal document cast doubt on how effectively the sweeping immigration crackdown is targeting violent criminals involved in drugs, organized crime, or murder.
The data shows that just 0.5 percent of the nearly 393,000 ICE arrests involved people accused or convicted of homicide, amounting to around 2,100 individuals. There were similarly low numbers for those accused or convicted of sexual assault (1.4 percent), weapons offenses (1.6 percent), or dangerous drug charges (5.7 percent). Just 2 percent of those taken into ICE custody were accused of being gang members.
According to an analysis by CBS News just 13.9 percent of those arrested had been charged with or arrested for violent crimes.
The most common offenses connected to ICE detainees were the 118,000 accused of “other” crimes, such as entering the U.S. illegally or reentering the country after being deported, the network reported.
Other analyses have similarly suggested that ICE is not rounding up the “worst of the worst” at the scale it claims while defending its deportation push.
In December, the Daily Beast found that multiple immigrants labeled on a DHS website as the “worst criminal aliens arrested” were accused only of minor offenses such as traffic violations or marijuana possession, which is not even a crime in many states.
A review of ICE data by the Cato Institute found that as of October 2025, 73 percent of people booked into ICE custody had no criminal conviction, while nearly half had neither a conviction nor pending charges. Just 5 percent of migrants detained by ICE had a violent conviction, according to the institute.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the White House for comment.
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