Does ICE prioritize gang members, felons, and terrorists, or do they not make any prioritization on arrests?
Executive summary
ICE states it prioritizes arrests based on agency and Department of Homeland Security priorities, funding and capacity, and says it uses “targeted, intelligence‑driven operations” to focus on people who may threaten national security or public safety [1]. Independent reporting and public datasets show a different practical picture: multiple analyses and news outlets report most people booked into ICE custody in 2025 had no serious criminal convictions, and watchdog compilations find large shares of detainees without criminal records [2] [3].
1. What ICE officially says: priorities and “worst of the worst” rhetoric
ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) webpage explicitly says officers “prioritize their enforcement actions based on agency and department priorities, funding and capacity” and describes using targeted, intelligence‑driven operations to identify people who “may present threats to national security or public safety” [1]. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE public statements echo this, with DHS press pieces and news releases asserting recent operations have focused on violent criminals, gang members, human‑traffickers and other “worst of the worst” categories [4] [5] [6].
2. What data and independent reporting show about who is actually arrested
Reporting and independent datasets indicate a large portion of people ICE booked in 2025 had no criminal conviction beyond immigration or traffic offenses. CNN Investigates reported more than 75% of people booked into ICE custody in fiscal year 2025 had no serious criminal conviction, based on ICE records from October through May [2]. Tracker reports and nonprofit compilations also show many in ICE detention lack criminal convictions — for example, a November dataset snapshot counted roughly 73.6% of detained people had no criminal conviction at that time [3].
3. The gap between policy language and outcomes — competing explanations
There are two competing narratives in the record. ICE and DHS present selective enforcement statistics and press releases that highlight arrests of violent offenders and gang leaders to demonstrate prioritization [4] [5]. Independent reporters and researchers, citing ICE data and detention counts, argue that in practice the agency conducts many arrests of people without serious criminal histories, including “collateral” arrests and transfers from local jails — which inflates overall detention numbers of non‑convicted people [2] [7] [3]. Both sets of sources use ICE data; they differ in which slices of the data they emphasize [1] [2].
4. Tactics that affect who gets arrested: intelligence‑driven vs. collateral arrests
ICE describes intelligence‑driven, targeted operations [1]. Yet court reporting and local coverage document instances of warrantless or “collateral” arrests — arrests of people encountered while looking for another target — prompting judicial pushback and, in one recent case, a judge ordering limits on warrantless arrests in Colorado [7]. CNN and other reporting highlight aggressive tactics and bystander videos of community arrests, suggesting operational methods can lead to detentions of people beyond narrowly defined “priorities” [2].
5. Programs and partnerships that change enforcement reach
ICE leverages partnerships with state and local agencies (287(g) agreements) and with local jails as a force multiplier to identify removable aliens arrested by local law enforcement, which broadens who comes into ICE custody and can shift the profile of those arrested toward people with and without criminal convictions alike [8]. DHS and ICE public releases also spotlight coordinated operations [6], which can emphasize criminal targets while simultaneously resulting in other detentions through those partnerships.
6. Limits of available reporting and what is not in the sources
Available sources do not mention every internal ICE directive or the full, contemporaneous breakdown of convictions among all arrests across every fiscal month; detailed, case‑level reasons for each arrest are not listed in these snippets (not found in current reporting). The sources provided contain agency statements, news analyses and aggregated numbers, but they disagree on interpretation — ICE/DHS emphasize the share of criminal arrests while independent analyses emphasize the high share without criminal convictions [4] [2] [3].
7. Bottom line — both official prioritization and broad practice exist
ICE officially asserts it prioritizes gang members, felons and threats, and it publicizes arrests of violent criminals [1] [4]. Independent datasets and news reporting show substantial numbers of people ICE detains have no serious criminal record, and court decisions and reporting document collateral or warrantless arrest practices that broaden who is detained [2] [3] [7]. Readers should treat both claims as true in context: ICE’s stated priorities exist as policy and rhetoric, and the operational reality—shaped by data practices, interagency partnerships, and arrest tactics—produces many arrests outside the narrowly defined “worst of the worst” cohort [1] [2] [8].