The percentage of undocumented people with no criminal record arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement has risen to a record high, USA Today reported Thursday, meaning that a record percentage of ICE arrestees have allegedly committed the civil violation of being in the country without proper documentation but no criminal violation.
According to ICE data flagged by the paper, just 63.5 percent of ICE arrestees in December had criminal records, the lowest figure since ICE started tracking the metric in 2012.
That means a staggering 36.5 percent of ICE arrestees had committed no crimes on record.
Despite President Donald Trump’s campaign-era pledge to arrest and deport “criminal illegal immigrants,” once in office he authorized ICE to abandon the Obama administration’s priority of arresting undocumented people with serious criminal records, replacing it with an executive order to arrest and deport anyone subject to a deportation order.
In July 2017, then-acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said the government’s deportation of non-criminal undocumented people had gone from “zero to 100.”
“No population is off the table,” Homan said, referring to undocumented people eligible to be deported.
Still, while the percentage of non-criminal ICE arrestees has spiked, ICE’s total arrest numbers have declined. Perhaps due to an increase in localities refusing to share jail data with ICE, the agency arrested 12 percent fewer people in the final three months of 2018 than in the same period in 2017, Mother Jones noted.
C’mon…simple math here. If ICE changes from targeting “criminals” to just scooping up everyone, it is absolutely logical that the percentage of criminals would go down.
Perhaps the “story” should have been that the number or percentage of ICE arrests of undocumented aliens WITHOUT a criminal record have gone up…but then again, is this NEWS to anyone that has been paying attention???
Speaking of immigrant child separation policy,
That’s nice.
Sessions, who was not confirmed as District Judge in 1986 due to his racists views, who fawned over Trump and lied under oath about not meeting with Russians, who signed an order adopting civil asset forfeiture to seize the property of those not charged with crimes, a major advocate of prosecuting of even medical marijuana growers, rescinded gender discrimination of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, an opponent of legal immigration from non-white countries, opposed legislation against torture…
Yeah. That guy.
(applause from the crowd for his chair)
ICE is not there to arrest illegals with criminal records. They are there to arrest and deport illegal aliens. If you’re illegal, you should be arrested and deported.
But they’re not white, so not having a criminal record really doesn’t matter here.
Out of all government agencies, I want this one utterly destroyed. It is the living example of everything ugly about Republican-run government.
And it will never happen.
I’m fine with that.
So long as we arrest and imprison all the business owners who hire said illegals.
If there were no jobs to get here, there wouldn’t be illegal immigration.
Maybe start with a few golf courses with a history of hiring illegals…