A mere fraction — just 14 percent — of the immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first year of President Trump’s mass deportation effort had previously been convicted of or charged with violent criminal offenses, CBS News reported Monday, citing a Department of Homeland Security report that the news outlet obtained.
The statistics obviously run counter to the Trump administration’s ongoing claims that it is only targeting the “worst of the worst” as part of its inhumane immigration enforcement in (mostly) blue areas across the country.
The report shows that 60 percent of those arrested by ICE in the past year had some sort of criminal charge in their past, but the majority of those arrested did not face charges of or convictions for violent offenses. Per CBS News:
For example, while Mr. Trump and his aides often talk about immigration officials targeting murderers, rapists and gangsters, the internal data indicate that less than 2% of those arrested by ICE over the past year had homicide or sexual assault charges or convictions. Another 2% of those taken into ICE custody were accused of being gang members.
Nearly 40% of all of those arrested by ICE in Mr. Trump’s first year back in office did not have any criminal record at all, and were only accused of civil immigration offenses, such as living in the U.S. illegally or overstaying their permission to be in the country, the DHS document shows. Those alleged violations of U.S. immigration law are typically adjudicated by Justice Department immigration judges in civil — not criminal — proceedings.
This reporting comes as NBC News reports that the Trump administration border czar Tom Homan warned as early as this summer that the administration needed to focus primarily on arresting those who have been charged or convicted of violent crimes in order to “keep the faith of the American people.”
“I think the vast majority of the American people think criminal illegal aliens need to leave. And if we stick to that prioritization, I think we keep the faith of the American people,” Homan said on June 16 as part of an interview for a new book coming out by NBC News’ Homeland Security Correspondent Julia Ainsley, called “Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Program.” At the time of the interview Greg Bovino was overseeing a large scale ICE raid in Los Angeles.
“And I think the more we do that, the more the American people will support what President Trump’s doing. We got to do it and we’ve got to do it in a humane manner,” he said. “I think the more stories like that, people are going to question what we’re doing more.”
Bovino has, obviously, been booted from his position overseeing the various operations in blue cities after ICE agents killed two U.S. citizen observers in Minneapolis last month. He’s been replaced by Homan in a move that has, at the very least, given Republican lawmakers and administration officials cover to appear as though the administration is taking public outcry against the raids and violent immigration enforcement seriously. Homan has touted the fact that he has reduced the number of Border Patrol and ICE agents in Minneapolis by 700.
That still leaves over 2,000 agents in the city.
Faith Groups Fight Trump’s Christian Nationalism
A handful of faith organizations have teamed up to sue the Trump administration for the lack of religious diversity on the Justice Department’s Religious Liberty Commission. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday. Plaintiffs include Interfaith Alliance, the group’s president and CEO, Rev. Paul Raushenbush, as well as Muslims for Progressive Values, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Hindus for Human Rights.
The group of faith organizations are asking the court to “declare that the commission was created and administered in violation of federal law, to require the disclosure of documents that should already be public, and to ensure that any recommendations produced by this body are clearly identified as coming from an unlawfully constituted commission,” Interfaith Alliance said in a statement Monday.
The Trump DOJ’s Religious Liberty Commission includes Protestant and Catholic Christians, as well as a rabbi, but that is it. It also includes a former Miss California and Dr. Phil. The group members “espouse the view that America is a ‘Judeo-Christian’ nation with limited, if any restrictions, on infusing their religious values into government,” the lawsuit says.
“Religious freedom for some is religious freedom for none,” Raushenbush said in a statement shared with TPM. “The government has no right to pick and choose which religious beliefs to promote, and which to marginalize. The Trump administration has failed to uphold our country’s proud religious freedom tradition, and we will hold them accountable. Today’s lawsuit is our recommitment to fight for religious liberty for all with every tool available to us.”
Dem Senator Tries to Formalize Denouncement of Trump
Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) will introduce a resolution in the Senate this week to formally condemn President Trump’s talk of Republicans working to “nationalize” voting in specific jurisdictions in our country — a.k.a. places where Democrats win or tend to win elections. The resolution would also formally affirm that states are given authority to administer federal elections by the Constitution. Markey discussed his resolution in a statement that he shared with The Hill:
“The Constitution gives states the primary authority over the times, places, and manner of federal elections to the States. It does not assign to the President any power to directly control or administer State -run elections,” Markey said in a statement shared first with The Hill.
“There is no clause in the Constitution or law on the books—none—that allows a President to commandeer state election systems. No emergency power. No implied authority. No ‘because I say so.’ The President’s role is to faithfully execute the laws—not to rewrite the Constitution when the facts or the voters displease them,” he said.
Markey said that any effort by a president to nationalize or take over election administration would be “illegal” and “impeachable.”
A few Republican senators had made noises about how Trump’s talk of federalizing elections is unconstitutional, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). But it is unclear whether Thune would allow for a vote on Markey’s resolution.
Immigrant Warehouse In Atlanta
New from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
City of Social Circle officials say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has finalized the purchase of an industrial warehouse with plans to turn it into a sprawling detention facility, where as many as 10,000 immigrants could be held.
The city reported on its Facebook feed Sunday that the pending purchase has gone through.
City officials have ”been informed by multiple sources that the sale … has been completed,” the post says. “ICE is now the owner.”
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Yesterday’s Most Read Story
Republicans Rouse Themselves to Denounce Trump Posting the Obamas as Apes
I still remember watching in July 2024 the signs at the Republican national convention said “Mass Deportations Now”…. No one should be surprised by what this regime is doing. The voters should of paid a little more attention.
I still think the majority in Minnesota are out of Homan’s hands. He is the beard covering up Miller’s dictates and maybe Bovino in exile.
We lose more protection from the thugs.
Is Lewandowski still hooked into it?
I recall reading he was associated with Bovino.
Even if Homan tries to do anything other than putting a fig leaf on ICE’s record of intimidation, brutality, and murder, does anyone think that will really matter so long as the agents out on the street are poorly trained, unqualified thugs? And I still want to know how many of the pardoned J6ers are now with ICE.